autumn is restless

wool sweater
lawn chair
sunset before 8:30
hot tea
see the steam
lesson plans unfold
organize
anticipate
too tired to go climbing
too tired to wash the dishes
leaves rustle, crispily.
after endless days
of not talking to anyone
will i remember
how to listen?

Perfection isn't the answer.

My summer is winding down. i can count the number of "free" days left on just three fingers. As a teacher, i often hide the fact that i count on my fingers, especially when adding. Though, when i admit in front of my blessed class that i have to count by fives to gauge the time left in class (and i keep track of the fives secretly on my knuckles), they smile and give me tips to help count 30 minutes easily.

I just read a little article about society's narrow view of beauty, and it reminds me that as teachers (and plain adults too), we have a challenge to model imperfection, to model ugly, to model struggle in learning. i think the challenge is not simply in admitting to our own challenges, but to embrace our whole selves with compassion, and then ask for help in growing and learning how to overcome challenge, or embrace what society might call ugly or imperfect as beautiful and perfectly acceptable.

My heart hurts when i see students hide the fact that they are struggling; or that their first attempt at something didn't meet their expectations; when they feel "stupid". i am a recovering "stupid" and i can easily get down on myself when i don't reach "perfect". Teaching helps me understand the process of growth. Being able to learn alongside kids who are Eager! Driven! and Accepting helps me to focus on the challenge at hand, and not worry so much about whether or not i will be/do "perfect".

A few days ago i was out at a climbing wall, and a man in his twenties was attempting to lead climb his first 5.10b. Vocabulary breakdown (very generally): Lead climbing is when the rope end is attached to the climber. the climber's job is to free climb (no protection from the rope) a short distance and then clip the rope into a bolt in the rock. the belayer on the ground then belays the climber up to the next bolt. The climber has to keep clipping in all the way up the wall until the climber reaches the top, where the climber then secures the rope with an anchor. Sport climbs are rated Class 5 in the Yosemite Decimal Rating System. Walking is Class 1. Class 5 is then decimaled out to tell the level of the climb's difficulty. When i teach a beginner climber, i'll have her start out on a 5.4 or 5.5. The beasts of rock climbing are busting out at 5.15. There can be even smaller increments of difficulty, signaled when a 5.10 increases to a 5.10b or 5.10c. After that, it will become a 5.11.

Back to the story. This young guy was struggling on the wall. He couldn't find a good hold in order to get to his next bolt, even while his buddies were calling up suggestions. We learned, as we watched, that this was his first attempt. He yelled down, "I suck at this!" Such a familiar feeling to me! That feeling keeps me from persisting at a new idea or skill. That feeling is my nemesis and i try to squelch it whenever possible. i called up, "How can you suck if you've never done it before?"

As i start back to work next week, and anticipate all the new things that i will try (and expect perfection), i must keep asking myself and my students, "how can we expect perfection when we've never done this before?" I would love to annihilate the concept of Perfection, and retrain ourselves to seek our individual potential and ask instead, "did i conduct this to my highest potential?."

Roasted pig, anyone?

We went to a farm, surrounded by alders, cedars, dripping salmon berries and sly creeping blackberries.  The blue-grey campfire smoke rose up behind the house, evidence of a freshly un-buried pig with an ashy potato in his mouth.  The field was mowed and the tents set up for an extended party for some friends of ours.  I sat around the fire for hours, listening and chatting and sharing about life.

Meeting new people is something i love.  I love finding out what other people find interesting, how they find meaning in their lives, what makes them laugh.  I also like talking about my passions. Telling people that i teach 6th grade always brings one of several reactions.  "Oh, duuuude, how can you put up with them?  Caddy bitches, those middle school girls."  Or, "Awesome!  That sounds like SO-MUCH-FUN!"

All valuable responses.  i like talking about how adolescence isn't a choice.  It isn't like these kids wake up and say to themselves, "I love feeling incredibly awkward.  I love wondering if people are constantly noticing my breast buds through my t-shirt, and is this t-shirt still cool enough?"  Of course this is one of the most emotionally painful times in our lives.  i would say even more painful than the first broken heart because it is as if one's own self is constantly trying to betray one's own heart and self-esteem.  So sure, there is a fair amount of caddy, harmful drama that MUST be processed.  We like to talk about it, to discuss how to respond to the slap-in-the-face comments like, "I can't believe you actually are still wearing Vans.  This year, we're all wearing Cons."

But also, there is so much FUN.  I love the easy laughter, when it comes full-bellied and at no one's expense.  I love the pranks on the art teacher.  I love the wonder that happens when new learning hits home.  It is what brings me to tears, at the end of the day, when i am in awe of my young co-workers.

Sinking, dripping, setting suns

Relaxation and rejuvenation have been my goal this summer. i think it's working, because i'm already getting excited about the new school year, and am beginning to design and tinker with my curricula with joy in my heart and tingling creativity.

However, i'm hoping to take my new habit of stopping, breathing, and being grateful through the whole year. My partner and i found ourselves at the beach a few nights ago. The commanding presence of the setting sun stopped us, sat us down in the sand, and invited us to watch the closing of the day, like drops of honey spilling over the mountain peaks and into the Sound, finally dissolving into the purple backbone of the Olympics. i felt love swell my heart in new places. I turned to my sweetie and asked, What if we did this every day? How would our lives be different if we watched the sunset every day this year? We smiled at each other and agreed to the challenge. Once we get our digital imaging system set up (oh, sounds so formal!), i hope to post our sunsets to this blog. join us in as many sunsets as you can!

Summer Reading

So one of my goals this summer is to read as many of my students' favorite books as i can. I'm finding, overall, that young adult books are written with plot above all else. The storyline is the most important element in many of these books, with the art of writing and character development falling far behind. Of course i'm disappointed a bit, since what i love in a good book is lyrical writing and complex characters. But maybe that comes with years of scouring literature for just those elements, and letting plot slip down in my priorities. Perhaps my young adult readers are perfectly happy with books that get to the point and spend more pages "telling" than "showing". This gives me some insight on how my students might have very little idea when i ask them to write a scene by showing the details. They simply have read few examples of such writing...I'll keep looking though.

I'll give you a brief review of the books i have read lately. I'll put them order of my preference.

1. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Imagine being the center of the nation's focus, fighting for your life, and you've put yourself into Katniss Everdeen's shoes, or soft-soled leather boots, rather. The Hunger Games is an annual broadcasted event designed to remind the minions that the Capitol is always in control. Each district's children, ages 12-18, must put their names into a lottery for participation in the last-kid-alive-wins Games. Poor kids can put their names in up to 12 times a year for more food rations, which of course, tips the scales towards the poor fighting the poor for the wealthy elite's entertainment. Hmmm, perhaps a comment on today's wars? Katniss finds herself in the fight for her life, which she executes with compassionate precision and care, in light of the circumstances. What happens, though, when she rebels against the rules of the Hunger Games, and wins? Thankfully, this action-adventure has two more books to finish the story, Catching Fire, which is already out, and the third in the series is due out late August, 2010. This book has my kids reading ferociously (as it did me), though the content is certainly violent. It has a certain video game element to it, and the violence is hard to believe at times. Katniss, with her mission to survive, however, is very believable, beguiling, and intriguing.

2. Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin. Have you ever wondered if your life is meaningful and satisfying, even if you couldn't live another minute? Liz gets to ponder this question as she finds herself in Elsewhere, the place you go after you die. Yearning for all things that a 15-almost-16-year-old would, Liz wonders if she'll ever know how to drive, ever fall in love, ever find something that she loves to do, and is good at. While the plot is "fresh and arresting" (The New York Times Book Review), this is a perfect example of a story being told (five years were summed up in a single parentheses) rather than shown. Several of my students love this book, and i believe that the way it deals with loss and death and new appreciation of the moment (however un-ripe and un-mature and un-grown-up) is its beauty.

3. Olive's Ocean by Kevin Henkes. I honestly don't have much to say about this one. A never-noticed girl at school, Olive, dies suddenly in a car crash. Martha is struck by the What if? notion, wondering all that could have happened had she made friends with Olive. With this thought running in her secret inner monologue, Martha visits her grandmother at the ocean, and deals with the possible loss of her dear grandma, a near-death experience, and a mortifying first kiss.

What's top on your reading list?

Ruined.

It's a play i saw two weeks ago at the Intiman Theater in Seattle. ( www.intiman.org/2010Season/ruined/default.aspx). Written by Lynn Nottage and directed by Kate Whoriskey, this play is set in war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. It is a story ultimately about love: the futility and the power of love in the face of systemic violence. It is a story about women: this war is fought on the bodies of women, one line describes. It was spoken by a woman brutally victimized by soldiers but sought refuge at a whorehouse. Yes, refuge as a prostitute. My heart was immediately ripped out.

Before we settled into our seats in the theater, I grabbed a flyer for Run For Congo Women (www.intiman.org/2010Season/ruined/runwalk.aspx), a fundraiser that supports Women for Women International and their work in the Congo. This is incredible work that i wholeheartedly support--Will you join me on October 16th?

But i have to say, that while i was watching a scene depicting soldiers about to rape a woman in order to get information from her, i thought cynically, "And my response to this is to go for a run around Green Lake?!?! Are you kidding me??" While in my emotional response, i did not (and never do) feel like my response to this gross injustice and oppression is even close to adequate or reasonable or appropriate. i feel like my actions are almost vulgar in my privilege and limited action.

But what helps me continue to move forward with hope is to know that i am not the only one. i am part of a much larger, much more powerful response that requires my participation, my trust, and my humility. i am not the only one responsible and i am one of many who respond. Loudly. Together.

Join me.

A conferences with gluten-free cookies!!

It's been a few days since i've posted because i've been at a conference: the Pacific Northwest Association of Independent Schools (PNAIS...yes, i know what it sounds like: giggle giggle) Leadership Conference.  i can't give you a spectacular reason why i'm at a leadership conference for independent schools spanning the Utah-Montana-Oregon-Washington region.  i guess i just really love my job, and i want to see my friends be able to keep loving their jobs too.  i want us to love what we do for a long time. 

My list of things i've been learning (even while soaking in the saltwater hot tub beneath blue-peach inky sunsets):

• There are people who have been teaching for a million years and they still laugh.  They have even started families, and they said that having kids actually helped them become more compassionate teachers.   I would call that a miracle: apparently miracles exist.

• People who teach 6th grade light up when they talk about how they teach ancient civilizations.  One of my favorite ideas so far has been for each student to design her own Utopia.  She puts her continent somewhere on the planet (after learning some key elements of geography).  She puts in mountains and rivers and decides the best place(s) for her society to settle, according to human environmental needs.  She invents language, religion, art, government (does she even want a democracy??), and economy for her Utopia, as she learns about them through an actual ancient civilization (Mike used Mesopotamia).  i love this idea as a way to really understand and apply concepts that make up a civilization. 

• TED.com

• Darin, Fleur and I want to re-institute Red Door Gatherings, where educators of all ilk get together for a drink and a chat once a month.  All those people who experience miracles that i mentioned above used to do it, and they smile wistfully when they talk about their friends and conversations that buzzed them up at Red Door Gatherings to keep doing amazing work. 

• Of course i've been learning tons of other things that in order to be retold need accurate percentage numbers, the correct causal links and factors, etc.  I'll keep you posted.

• I'm still a firm believer in relaxation.  g'night.

Gophers and Cookies

The cloud i watched today was a gopher with a cape on, jumping at warp speed out of the ground.  Yesterday, i watched a leaping salmon with a long dorsal fin.  My dog tried to chase a barn swallow, then two young crows.  i borrowed some ripe raspberries from my neighbor down the alley (don't tell).  i baked john some cookies today.  The secret to damn-tasty chocolate chip cookies is to be patient enough to put the dough in the fridge for an hour before baking.  That, and actually letting the butter soften, but not melt.  Chocolate chip cookies done right take a lot of time, with walks and laundry in between the steps.  Yesterday, i had a picnic with my friend, and we ate melted chocolate easter candy and talked about the benefits of having parents help in the classroom, and how to help kids read with true interest and intrigue (i'm not sure we solved that one, though).

There are some things that don't happen during the school year, when we educators are grading and planning and responding and thinking and designing six days a week.  i sort of felt bad today for not doing any reading or organizing or planning.  i just watched clouds, learned what a spotted towhee's song sounds like, and watched a fabulously stupid movie.  oh, and made my best cookie ever.

The last few weeks of school my arthritis was pretty inflamed.  i walked like a gnome in The Lord of the Rings, and i didn't want to move once i settled into my desk chair.  I groaned a lot.  i was worried that the magic medication (an NSAID called Mobix) i had started in April was turning its back on me, like a bff in middle school after that thing happened at the dance.  But what i know to be true, and what my doctor reminded me at my last appointment, is that relaxation isn't a luxury.  It is a necessity. It is a medication that I choose daily.  Today, i chose to relax.  And i'm not sorry.  I think i'll do it again tomorrow, pain free.  I recommend it.

Sold

i just finished reading Sold by Patricia McCormick.  It's the story of Lakshmi, a 13-year-old girl from Nepal sold into the sex industry in India.  Afterward, while i was making my lunch, the knife felt viciously sharp.  Squeezing the limes felt cruel and brutal.  Everything feels gluttonous and disgustingly self-serving, even the sun (such a stranger) is wasting its energy to make the plumb leaves gleam like rubies.  What a waste! So much energy goes for what?  Have i ever been starving?  Have i ever been beaten repeatedly?  Have i ever been drugged and raped over and over (times 1,000)?  And yet, i am making a picnic lunch.  I am taking a warm bath.  I am scratching the belly of my dog, who seems content and full.  The ferocious inequality of this is defeating.

And yet...

I get an email from my student with whom I am reading Sold.  She writes, "It hit me right in the heart.  I want it to stop." Yes.  So much Yes, I too want it to stop!  But what can I do?  How do I change the fate of so many Lakshmis?  Root causes.  I assuage my catapulting questions with direction.  The root cause for Lakshmi was the dire poverty in which she lived with her family.  There are organizations (more research needed here) that are working to attend to such poverty, to such criminal systems as sex slavery.  That is not my job.  i am not called to go to Nepal and India.  I am not called to tackle, headlong, these root causes.

My root cause to tackle is apathy.  To provide the stories--the raw reality--of our most vulnerable  into the hands of middle-class kids who might begin to give a care about our world.  Who might find that their calling takes them to Nepal.  Or closer.  But they find that they are hit to the heart with something raw and real and something that they can work to help change.

I can be responsible with my resources to give to such organizations.  I can be responsible to my students to raise the curtain of comfort and provide tools for action and change.  I'll keep you posted.

Thanks!

Thanks all of you who read my first posts.  For a closet writer, it's like drinking a elixir of courage to hear that people actually read my work.  Thank you!

violence begets violence but what begets dignity?

J-walking.  How many of us have done it?  I j-walk across MLK on my way to work at least once a week.  I'm struggling with this issue that came out in the news yesterday about a Seattle police officer who was attempting to arrest a young woman for J-walking.  This happened on the corner of Rainier Ave and MLK, down the street from my school a half mile or so.  I just watched the clip posted by Komo News on You Tube.  I'm startled by a few things, and I can't pretend that i can make sense of them.  Some facts: a guy punched a girl (social taboo, but why?); j-walking is a crime (but everyone does it and doesn't get arrested for it); the cop was white, the girl and many people watching and filming were black.  And young.

Some questions: Were the students made aware that crossing the 4-lane highway was something that could put a person in handcuffs?  Because, ahem, now I've learned a little lesson--though it's got to be much easier for me, a white girl, to get away with.   How are cops trained to respond when people resist arrest?  What would have happened if the j-walker was let go?  At what lengths do police officers go to uphold the law?  Could she have been fined instead of arrested?  How do police officers develop non-violent strategies to de-escalate turbulent situations such as this?   

I'm grappling with one other aspect of this incident: sexism.  The news reports have been sure to mention that the cop (not identified as a male always, but assumed) has punched a "young girl" (since when is 17 years old a young girl?).  What bothers me about this is that i was appalled that a guy would punch a girl.  And let's face it, i'm a darn good feminist.  It bothers me that i have been taught to think that girls and women, simply because of our sex, should be immune to violence.  This, of course, is deeply rooted in the epidemic of violence against women with many twists and turns in the connections.  I hear the new reports emphasize the "girl" fact.  I hear the reports say in the undertones, "Girls should not fight their own battles. Girls should be bystanders while others fight for them." I'm not a proponent for violence by any means.  However, women and girls don't have time to sit on the sidelines and wait for a shining knight.  I don't intend to suggest that this girl should have been "saved" by a strapping dude, but the commentary implies that while many things are awful about this incident,  one of them is that a guy hit a girl, and girls just shouldn't get involved like that.  

i'm know that i need to continue to look at the many sides of these questions, of this incident, of the issues raised here.  I don't think this is my final stance, but perhaps my final word here.  More specifically for this blog, how does this translate into my work with younger girls?  How do we create a culture of non-violence when force is often the most powerful voice?  Even in our tame hallways, punching, kicking, hair-pulling happens and is a tool (consciously or not) to establish power among the social layers of the 6th grade. Why does an 11-year-old girl need the affirmation of popularity to be powerful?  Why aren't intellect, wit, compassion, caring, generosity, acceptance, and joy used as tools for power?  And why, when my students walk down the street after school, can't i believe that these tools will keep them safe from oppression?

Regardless of who was in the right during the j-walking incident, the fact remains that violence begets violence, and what i want to see are streets that flow with the headwaters of love and respect.  I want to see a street where a woman who breaks a law is treated with respect and dignity and she, in turn, can claim responsibility without losing her pride and her dignity.

My ire is up.  
 

The last day in the classroom

i was driving in to work this morning, around 9 in the morning, sipping my coffee, snuggling up to the delivery trucks and mini-vans in my lane.  John and i were chatting about the news feed on the radio.  i realized that once i got to school, i wouldn't have anything exciting and new to do.  i wouldn't have a whole slew of collaborators with whom to exchange ideas, discuss what happened on this day in history (1921: 5 killed in riots when Cuban sugar plantations workers were deprived of food; 1928: Amelia Erhart set out on the first trans-atlantic flight by a woman; 1963: The Supreme Court eliminated the requirement of the recitation of the Lord's Prayer in public schools).  I asked John if it was wrong that i was missing my class and school hasn't even been out for a full 4 days.  He smiled.  He's good at smiling and letting things speak their own truth.

So, yesterday i accomplished a few things from my to-do list.  We went to a camp outside of Seattle: River Ranch.  Holy Beautiful Amazing!  I'm sure every girl scout in Washington knows about this place, but we were blown away by the 400+ acre site: forests that told tales of mists from the river, a lake that rippled with the memory of churning glaciers, salmon berries reaching into the windows of the cabins...it was truly inspiring.  We are excited about using the site for our fall overnight trip in order to focus our intention on community-building through canoeing and campfires and a giant sleepover.  The fall trip is an amazing time for girls to find themselves on equal footing: a new place, a new group, a new focus.  We become a group who needs one another, and so we talk, and we laugh, and we share some secrets (perhaps) that tell a little bit about who we are, for real.

Yesterday I was also incredibly privileged to be a part of a roundtable discussion about cross-cultural understanding in the world of girls.  A woman named Amy, a peachy glow of optimism around her, came in to pick our brains about how we might use something she is making: a movie.  The Girlworld project.  http://girlworldproject.org   A documentary.  About girls.  Who go to school.  In Nepal.  We watched the trailer (beautiful and stunning and intriguing and inspiring doesn't begin to describe it) about a girl named Shanta who goes to school in Kathmandu.  She is from the "untouchable" caste, and lives with her brother, his wife, and their little cutie-pie baby.  So many layers in her story.  And the film is Just her story, no obvious moral or tone to influence the how the viewer should think or feel.  We chatted afterward about the possibility: i can see 6th grade watching such a movie as a comparison to their own story.  What are their own privileges and challenges?  How are they similar and different to Shanta's?  What are the values inherent and respected in her culture?  How does Shanta use these values to make her way in the world?  And, likewise, how do the 6th graders here identify their own personal and cultural values and use them to make decisions about the world?  In fact, how does each girl in Seattle identify these aspects of her identity?  Are they all pretty similar?  Do girls around Seattle have different goals and dreams based on different values?  What if we created a coalition of girls in Seattle to identify a common identity: "We survive with these privileges and face these challenges." What if they stood up with their strengths and differences as allies to the girls in Nepal (or anywhere!), and demanded that girls be given the right to education.  Perhaps this is a demand made to the leaders of the G20 around the 10th anniversary of the Millennium Development Goals.  Perhaps these girls from Seattle speak out on behalf of girls everywhere, raising awareness and resources for girls to be educated.  What could be more amazing than that?  (You might have some ideas.) Um,  i'm still trying to figure out how to include links to different places, like Amy's blog. http://nonfictionmedia.com/blog   Hooray for collaboration!

Just turned in my Narratives.

i was sitting in a cafe late one Thursday evening last week, flipping through papers and poems and rubrics of my students.  i was compiling a narrative, a letter to the student that reviews and assesses her progress over the past term.  A guy walked by with his coffee and said over his shoulder, "Just give 'em all Bs." 

Should we take a minute and review why i didn't?  It would have saved me an anxiety attack (I've never had one before, but throwing up in the middle of the day sure didn't feel good).  It would have saved me a month of 4 a.m. wake up alarms and midnight snacks of old Easter candy (thank you Cathy!).  I could have avoided the arduous and disarming discussion with my boss about the absolutely unreasonable deadline.  I'm beginning to sound like I really enjoy whining, but let me get to my point here: i couldn't, under any circumstances, lived with myself and scrawl out a list of Bs to toss to my students like after-dinner scraps.  How dare i?

I live my teaching life by a little unwritten code: you and your students are interchangeable, always.  I try to check myself: Would i appreciate being spoken to in that tone of voice?  Would i enjoy being overwhelmed by her coffee breath when she comes to help me?  Would i work my hardest all year if i knew my teacher would toss me a B at the end of the year so she could scurry off to the outlet malls and maybe hit up a vacation deal in Banff?  So of course, the option is ONLY, ALWAYS, honor my students with my best work. 

So, here i am.  i have just submitted my narratives to my boss (Sorry, Sally.  "Boss" just sounds better than "Dean of Faculty").  I'm sitting at my gigantic desk (not as gigantic as this field, however).  I think my bamboo plant might die soon, so i should take it home with me.  And i should do some other things before i turn in my keys and my computer and my anxiety attack.  This is my list to close up shop:

1. Scan all the student work that i want to use as examples for next year.  It's been piling up on my desk, cluttering the horizon.
2. Meet with my colleagues and plan a schedule for the summer.  See, we're adding another teacher to our team (yay), but we'll need to figure out how we'd like to work together.  
3. Pull all the books out of the library that kids recommended to me over the year. Get ready to read them by putting them in order: prettiest book covers first.
4. Pack up all my personal items (including my ailing bamboo plant) and pick up the classroom.
5. Weed through my term binders: pull all the good stuff and light the rest on fire.
6. Double-check my conference schedules (i.e. my jury duty is conveniently on the second day of my bioethics conference. hrmph).
7. Go visit the camp where we'll be having our fall overnighter. 
8. Book a massage.
9. Meet with a teacher from another school about girls' middle schools.  i don't know what to tell her.  Maybe, "They're girls.  They believe in themselves with a ferocity shared with lionesses and high school basketball coaches, that is, when they aren't getting texted that they are fat and ugly and don't wear the right shoes."  I'll let you know how that goes.