Right from Wrong

I seem to have been given the wrong impression.  For some reason, I thought this parenting thing was supposed to get easier once the kids were out of diapers and could get their own snacks.

Two things happened this week that made me realize just how difficult it is to teach (scary thought, coming from a so-called professional teacher).  No situation is ever just black or white.

The first happened when my son came home from school feeling a little down.  It seems some of the students were given "challenge words" in spelling.  My son was a little depressed that he had not been chosen (and sadly enough, had no idea what the criteria was for being allowed to do the challenge words).  He wanted to know what to do.  That was a pretty easy one to handle, though he decided that talking to the teacher about it was too scary.  

Then he mentioned that one of the four girls cheats on her tests, thus meeting whatever teh criteria is for being allowed challenge words (I know this all seems minor-stick with me).  He wanted to know if he should tell the teacher that this girl was writing the words in her desk before every test.  

Of course, I kind of blew it off, told him to worry about himself, that he knows that he is doing the right thing.  He agreed, but said, "It's just not right, Mom."  That is when I realized that the advice I gave him on the subject would shape the way he will deal with these types of things in the future.  And that is when my job as a mother, a guide, really, seemed pretty important.  We talked about a few options - telling the teacher, talking to the girl, getting some other kids to tell...I felt kind of overwhelmed by the seriousness he showed in something that to me was, at first, a no brainer.

The other issue of the week was my daughter.  For some reason, she felt it was necessary to touch her toe just over the line to see what would happen when she said the EFF word at school.  We had just been talking about this because my son had, just the night before, used the term "buggered up" to describe a mistake he made on his homework.  Guess his sister thought she would find out what happened if she swore at school. (I believe the phrase she spoke was "I'm freezing, f*ck".  Haha Right?)

When I arrived to pick her up, her little "friend" came flying out the door to tell me about my daughter's "Bad word".  She had also apparently told the teacher and one of the little boys.

I gave my daughter hell - I mean heck - for swearing, but the teachable moment came when she said that her little friend did the wrong thing by tattling on her.  That real friends are not supposed to do that.  

Because on one hand I kind of agreed with her.  And I know all about tattling is to get someone into trouble, and telling is done to get someone out.  I am a teacher, I must say those words twenty times a week.

But this was another lesson.  To condone the tattling is not a lesson I want to teach my kids.   But thinking about it on a larger scale, a societal scale, kind of changes things.  

With my son, I thought he had two choices - to tell or not.  But yet, when it came to my daughter's situation, I kind of was annoyed with the little tattle-tale.  But if it comes down to seeing someone do something worse that swear or cheat, does that make it okay to tell?  If you see your friend shoplift, or someone get robbed or raped, do you just say "Well, I know I am doing the right thing, so I will just stay out of it?"

I don't agree with that either.  If we are going to teach a child how do choose between right and wrong, shouldn't we teach them how to deal with the situation when someone breaks the code? How do you find the balance between upstanding citizen and annoying complainer?  

So all of a sudden, two very minor incidents, take on huge implications.  I guess in a way it is kind of a loss of innocence.  Especially when you find out your mom hasn't got all the answers.  

Discussing the issue with my son was eye-opening.  He said to me, "Well, people who cheat eventually get caught right? They learn their lesson." It was hard to break it to him that some people cheat for a very long time, and get much more than challenge words before they are ever caught.  And some are never caught.  

He was pretty confused, too, about why someone would want to cheat to get it all correct.  "Don't we learn from our mistakes?  If she cheats she is not learning anything." 

Both kids have given me a lot to think about.  And it's kind of made me re-think what happens in my own classroom.  Tattle-talers run rampant in grade 4.  Unless it is life or death, I cull a lot of the crap with a "Thank you for telling me."  Some kids are undoubtedly trying to get ahead on the trouble others get into, but maybe some truly believe that something needs to be set right.

Guess I need to stop phoning it in, at home and at school, and start giving answers that just might teach these kids how to navigate the roads ahead of them.

Book of the Week - The Road - Cormac McCarthy (You must read!)

Song of the Week - Kicking Stones - Johnny Reid 

Change - I hope it is coming

I am feeling more than a little guilty that I have not added anything new for over a month.  

Not really sure I have anything useful to say.

I think this Obama "Change" theme is infiltrating my subconscious.  In one of my previous entries I wrote that it seemed so many of the people I care about are going through tough times right now, like there was some kind of hideous planetary misalignment that knocked everyone on their asses.

Perhaps, it is just a harbinger of change.  Things have to get worse before they can get better, or something.  I felt really inspired, not only by some of the messages Obama was getting out there, but more than that, by the people themselves, people who were getting off their butts and doing something to make change happen.  I was reading an article that discussed Obama's fundraising ability, and how he put Clinton to shame - and how it was not the Big Cheeses with millions that made the difference, but the multitude of everyday people who put what they could into supporting him.  Drops in the bucket, so to speak.

Every year I introduce my students to a song by Steven Bell (On the Wings of an Eagle). It is a song based on Isaiah 39.  We have a discussion about that old workplace poster "It's hard to soar like an eagle when you are surrounded by turkeys."  We discuss the symbol of the eagle, and why it was chosen in the Bible, and for the song.  

I have a boy in my class who is pretty on the ball-not just gifted, but aware, plugged in...it was the first time the connection was made between the eagle and the US.  We ended up having quite the conversation about the symbolism of the great bird, and its correlation to independence and strength.  I use the song as a call to self-improvement for the kids, pride in themselves, and being vigilant in their own rise. (you can be a turkey or an eagle-or in a broader more inclusive sense, a sparrow, or a duck) 

 I put up a bulletin board and didn't notice until it was done that I had done it all in red and blue.  Oops.  For someone who is in no way an American flag waver (who could be after the past eight years? The way Canadians have been swept aside as useless?) I was shocked that my subconscious outed me.  Either that or those were just the two colours of paper that were available.

When you look at the state we are in, things have become about as bad as they can be.  Environmentally, financially and diplomatically in public, and just as bad in the homes of those close to me who are struggling.  So now is the time things have to start getting better.

The other morning, when I heard the news that Obama had put in motion steps to close Guantanamo Bay, I had to catch my breath.  It's like the US has regained its sanity.  It must have been hard to decide to do that-I think of my son being held there, and I want it closed, but then I think of someone from there killing my son, and I want to do whatever it takes to keep my loved ones safe.  But Obama has not said he is releasing anyone, as far as I know.  I believe he has a plan to try these people according to the law.  I have been following this story (yes, through liberal media) and I am appalled at what I have found out about the tactics used in the name of safety, and in the name of God.

I was also glad to hear the new President's first trip will be to Canada.  I think it is high time those relations were repaired.

I watched the Larry King "interview" of the Bushes the other night.  W was very defensive, and Laura came across as a 50's housewife who had no clue what her husband did at work.  Of course, she did make clear that she knows what all of us know, what the media reports.  Sheesh.  She said she is going to write a book.  I won't be rushing out to get her unique take on what she didn't know about her husband.

W sleeps fine at night.  He should read the latest Vanity Fair, where all the major lowlights of his presidency are listed, right from winning the election through a Supreme Court decision to how he handled the financial market collapse.  Luckily he has passed an edict stating he and his buddies cannot be prosecuted for the decisions they made in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Well, this post wandered quite far from my intent.

I guess the next big question is - who is going to make the change in Canada?  Who is going to light a fire under the asses of the people in this country?  We need change here, too.  In our leadership, but at home, too.  It's time for all of us to make some resolutions and clean up - at home, the environment, the government.  

Book of the Week - At Work by Annie Leibovitz

Song of the Week - Hotel California by The Eagles (cause as Cael would say, I "killed" it on Guitar Hero)

Okay, it was on the Easy setting.  Everyone has to start somewhere, right?

Right person, right place, right time

A few years back, a friend was explaining she felt that failed relationships/colossal mistakes were sent to us by a higher power, the universe, whatever, to teach us lessons about ourselves.  Somehow this ties into experience being the greatest educator or something and I remember thinking at the time that there were a few lessons I could have skipped (very much like Christian Ethics-oh yeah, I did skip those.)

Speaking with another friend (one who is going through her own personal hell right now) at that time, we kind of agreed that we are sent the people we need at the time, we just need to be open to receiving them into our lives.

There are lessons, then there are lessons.  There are people we need, and then there are people someone ("someone" or "Someone") else thinks we need. The lessons from the universe are the ones that suck ass.   

I guess where I am is at a point where I can say that I do think we are sent who we need when we need them.  I have been lucky this year: new job, great new colleagues and a stronger friendship with former colleagues.  It is supposed to be this easy, right?

So why then, did I need those lessons sent to me:  tough job, asinine, cruel people, so much crap...well, after talking to my friend in the Big City, I think I have an answer.

She has come back into my life after a long absence-no drama, just time and distance doing their jobs, erasing the past connections.  After her own hellish year, she is getting it all together.  Enough to call me on my own shit, that is for sure! She is very in tune to what I am saying and doing, and it is unnerving.  She is making me think (the unexamined life and all that).

So, the other night, half-joking, as usual, I made a comment that I was learning so much from the work she has done, and that I was riding the coattails of her mistakes and missteps.  And that's when I realized that maybe those tough lessons sent to me, were actually situations where I was the person who was needed, and I couldn't be that unless I lived the challenges I did.  So maybe there is something to the Universe Lessons theory.

Which is not to say that she went through her challenges only to fulfill some cosmic role in my life...I think things are more interconnected, layered and mysterious than that...it is not, in fact, all about me. (Don't tell my husband, ha ha).  But it is interesting how often the right person has come into my life at the right time.  And how often, thinking about it, I have been that person.

So in discussing all this, we ended up talking about what a person brings to the table, the gifts they give, and how so many people give and give, and take care of others (my friend Hal would know the Meyers Briggs code for that!) and never let anything flow back (who has time?).  How we are robbed of learning, and gratitude and meaningful interaction with others.

Sometimes you have to sit back and relax and let someone or something be the balm you need.  The right person or experience could be there all along, and if you are not careful, you might be looking the wrong way, and miss him/her/it completely.  You get what you give, true, but you have to be open to receiving the message.

klm

Book of the Week - The In-Between World of Vikram Lall by MG Vassanji (Two time Giller winner)

Song of the Week - Ease Back - Amos Lee

The State of Things

I have found myself escaping into fiction a lot in the past few weeks.  If I actually admitted to the number of novels I have read, people would start to wonder who is looking after my kids.

Once I realized I was using the word "escape" to describe my forays into someone's else's imaginary landscape, I started wondering what I was trying to get away from.  It made me think the quote from George Eliot that I have on my FB page:

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.

I first saw it as the epigraph in Carol Shield's Unless, and it immediately struck a chord.  I was going through a "bump" of post partum at the time, and I really felt that quote described the way I was feeling.  Like it was all too much-so much easier to shut down, tune out.

I am not a scholar, but to me it seems Eliot was saying that we have immunized ourselves against the tiny episodes of life that are felt by the most minute elements of nature, and that if we could feel the pain of a blade of grass growing, or the simple beauty of a squirrel's heart beat we would be overcome by the grandness of it all.  If we just stopped to listen, we we would overhear something beautiful and horrible at the same time.  

So in the past few weeks, we have had bad news on so many fronts: friends overwhelmed by issues of money, custody, depression...One student with a parent who is hospitalized for mental health issues, another parent showed up today and said she and her husband were having trouble, and may not make it.  Everytime we turn around, it's something else.

I spoke with a colleague who has a family member who suffers from mental illness.  When she told me her story, I felt the same as I did when I heard all the others-the world presses in, and I have to push back or it will crush me.  Everyone is so sad.  They say they are happy with their stuff, and their kids, and their lives, but there is so much disaffectedness...

I tried to explain to my colleague that I kind of feel that people who suffer from depression, or mental illness are actually too much in touch with what is going on out there, that they have no filters-they can hear the grass grow, and the squirrel heart, and the mom who doesn't have her kids, or the child who has to watch the ambulance and police come pick up his father-they hear the pain in all these things and cannot cover their ears.  

I know that is how I felt when I had my post partum "issues" (I have a million euphemisms).  I felt filter-less, like every single thing that happened was a flaming arrow, and there was little ol' me, like a dork,  without a shield.  Luckily, now, after time and distance, and a round of filter-building Zoloft, and friends and family, I have a few defenses.

Even so, I can still catch whiffs of that crushing feeling, that overwhelmedness.   And I have to wonder what the world would be like if we all were a little more in touch with this craziness, if we reacted to the shit head on, if things would be different.  Imagine if instead of turning away from the difficulties others are facing, we really let ourselves feel.

I haven't any answers (thus the baffled).  But I do know that turning to a book (or four) by Paul Quarrington, or a lovely book set in Vancouver by Timothy Taylor, or an Annie Dillard or the odd Vanity Fair can make the real world recede a bit.  How lucky for me, that I can escape.

klm

Book of the Week - Stanley Park - Timothy Taylor

Song of the Week- Josh Radin/Patty Griffin - You Got Growin' Up to Do.

New Home

My web page will have a new home for now, here at Blogspot.  Mobile Me, while easy to use, was just too expensive for a beginner!

Not much new to talk about this week-I have added a couple of old blogs...

I have finished a story I was working on and now have two more on the go-by on the go, I mean they are percolating in my brain.  I feel like Walter Mitty sometimes, living another life besides the one everyone else sees.  If all this is going on in my head, it makes me wonder what is going on in the heads of the people around me!

Getting this blog moved over was a huge "to do" on my list.  Now I can start thinking of things to say...

Stay tuned...
klm

Song of the Week - For my kids- Breaking Free (High School Musical) and Crazy ABC's (BNL) Go ahead and laugh, but watching my kids dance and sing is hilarious.

Book of the Week - Cockroach Rawi Hage - I am amazed that such an unsympathetic pathetic main character can hold my attention.

The Thin Chalk Line - Re-post from Oct 15

I was running the loop around Wascana Park last weekend when I heard a sound that made me catch my breath. No it was not the music on my iPod that my husband hates so much, but the sound of Canada geese. Now, those who have been to Regina will not find the sound of honking geese to be out of the ordinary. But the way it sounded above the music made me stop and take my earphones out. It sounded exactly like a sound I heard while watching coverage of 9-11.

You may remember hearing a high-pitched squealing in the background of the shots of people fleeing, or wandering in a daze after the towers fell. Many reporters at the scene were talking about the car alarms that were going off. It was eventually reported that the sigh-pitched noise that underscored everything else on that horrible day was the personal alarm system that warns when a firefighter is motionless for a predetermined amount of time. That is the day I realized what the word cacophony really meant. What the sound of those alarms really meant. When I heard that noise again on Friday, it first made me remember those that died, and how possible it actually could be for those close to me. Then it made me think about how we romanticize the profession of firefighter, and of police officer, too. Which led me to think about teachers, and how unromantic that job is. (I need to point out here that I know I think too much-my mom told me so!)

I recently read a book called Working Fire - The Making of an Accidental Fireman by Zac Unger. It’s about a young, well-heeled child of Berkley professors who decides to chuck his Masters and his stimulating work watching birds mate to become an Oakland firefighter. Unger writes of the way civilians romanticize the Job. Then he goes on to describe things that I have rarely heard my dad and brother discuss-the hell of training, CPR on dead people, sitting with a woman, her legs trapped in her car, while his crew uses the Hurst tool (Unger says a fire fighter would never call them the Jaws of Life-that’s romanticizing civilian talk) to extricate her. He talks to her, all the while knowing that once they peel back the metal that is pinning her legs, she will likely bleed out before she gets to the hospital. He talks about his screw-ups, and hierarchy and AIDS and crackhouses. And yet, in the end, through all the shit, he is still a hero.

Coming from a family “steeped in the traditions” of the fire service (wow, could barely say that with a straight face), I have always been curious about what drives firefighters to choose the job, and what it’s really like on the inside. It is very hard to discuss these things with my brother and dad, because generally, what happens in the hall stays there.

I know other firefighters of course, and we all have seen TV shows and movies that portray the exciting and heroic life of a firefighter. I have a very clear memory of my dad bursting into laughter when he watched parts of the movie Backdraft-not just the pyrotechnics, but the shot of Billy Baldwin making out with his girlfriend in a bed of hoses on the back of an engine (and there is a difference between truck and engine, apparently), had my dad really rolling his eyes. But that could just be from watching a sex scene with his teenaged daughter in the room.

So talking with my dad this weekend, I wondered about the police’s thin blue line and the firefigher’s code, and why teachers are so different. Why can cops and firefighters put aside the bullshit and save the life? Why can those departments make good cases for getting budgets passed? Why do people get excited and choked up when the flashing lights appear in the rearview mirror, then pass by, on the way to save the day?

I wondered if maybe it is the immediacy of the save. The imminence of the danger. And maybe the uniform. Don’t get me wrong, I am not at all saying those heroes don’t deserve honour and respect. They do. They save lives, they protect us. They put their lives on the line, and maybe that does some romanticizing.

Teachers, in my humble opinion, are mandated to save lives, too. It is like saving someone from drowning in a slow leak, rather than the flash flood. Ask any parent whose child has learning issues, or social issues...they will no doubt feel anxious immediacy - save my child - but our school systems are not set up to respond and save those lives quickly.

Lack of communication at a fire or a hostage-taking would result in inquiries and finger-pointing. Lack of communication in the education system, well, that’s par for the course...we have, after all, twelve years to get it right. Maybe.

Teamwork is crucial at an accident scene - egos aside, you do your job for the good of the person in danger. Some teachers (some!) hide themselves away, do not join the team, just put in the time, and protect their fiefdom, their domain. Their egos.

Police officers and firefighters will back each other up, sometimes blindly. What someone does to one of their own, is done to all. What if teachers backed each other the same way?

What if the result of a teacher not putting his or her all into the lives that are entrusted to us was immediately apparent-the death of self-esteem, the death of love of learning, the death of self-confidence, the death of decency. Would that move us to take our jobs as seriously as a “first responder”?

What if teachers could inspire that sense of respect, awe and gratitude? And why don’t we? What would change for us, for our students, for the future, if we did inspire those things...

Book of the Week - Working Fire by Zac Unger

City of Yes by Peter Oliva

Song of the Week - New Shoes - Paolo Nutini

A Man Can’t Lose - Paul Young

Hallelujah...

So, Facebook.
Tonight, a girl I barely remember from high school poked me. When I received it, I IM'd my hubby, telling him that this girl I didn't really like or know wanted to be my "friend". To be honest, I think I always found her to be a little weird-she walked funny, I remember, and had a strange slow way of talking.
I think a big part of my issue was that she thought I was great. Followed me around a bit, tried to fit in with the group. Tried to please me. Give me a break.
My husband of course put me in my place, telling me maybe I wasn't as great as I seemed to think I was. (Aren't you just the hot shit, is what he said).
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that back then, I didn't object to her hanging around me. It wasn't because she worshipped me and thought I was cool...I just didn't question her right to be there. It was a time in my life that I was 100% confident in who I was and where I belonged. I didn't have to worry about this so-called loser, because she wasn't one. She was just...her. Yeah, she annoyed me, but I had no reason to jockey for position, or to push her out, I was, she was, we all just were.
Things would change after I moved away, to a new school-constant push and pull for friends, can't lose my place with this friend or that. I still had "marginal" friends-geeks, potheads, gunners, speds, heads...but I sure did my best to keep them all from knowing each other. Or, from knowing that I knew them all. I was a chameleon, blending in as needed. That sucks the big one. Sadly, it took this long for me to realize...what shitty shallowness.
Even today, back at school, the teacher this time, still jockeying for position, looking for an angle to best fit in, to get what I need. There are still the "cool kids" but I think, even at 36 that the cool kids are the ones who don't give a crap. I'm working on that. Ha.
So I poked this girl back...a girl I had not thought of since I moved from that northern hinterland...but someone who, unless she was just randomly poking people from the yearbook, I obviously impressed in some way...thank goodness we grow up a little bit. A little bit.