An Important and Grave Matter: Confessions of a Human Being

I have an important and grave matter to share with you today because I can no longer deny the truth. The rumors are running rampant. It isn't easy to hide what's so obviously obvious anymore. And while I know this may be hard for some of you to accept because you're not ready to handle the truth, I'm confident that once you hear me out, you'll agree that even though facts are hard, they are facts. Are you ready? Here goes.

Confession: I am a human being.

I've always known I was a human being, even at an early age. I knew I was different as soon as I started reading off of Dixie Riddle Cups when I was four, and freaked people in the Foodtown grocery store line out when I was five by turning to my mom to ask why I Dream of Jeannie was divorcing her husband (read off the National Enquirer). While the other kids were perfect, not reading the National Enquirer headlines out loud in the grocery line and instead pretending to be pirates and pilots with personalized ships and planes, I was being human.

I went to school and made mistakes. One time, I got a 38 on a math test. A 38! Can you imagine? I laughed too loud and too often and put my brother in jail with air prison bars when he laughed at me instead of with me. I rode my bike to the forbidden 7-11 to get candy after school, and grumbled about having to set the table. Sometimes, I even grumbled about having to clear the table.

Now and then, when desperate or slightly afraid, not perfectly courageous, I even lied. To a friend, to my mother, to myself. I told myself I could be perfect. If I acted perfect, looked perfect, sounded perfect, eventually I would become perfect. No one would know I didn't always clean the house or cook food from scratch or take the garbage out on time. Being a human being was so hard. It seemed like the perfect people, you know who I mean, the ones in charge, the ones who judge us human beings, they seemed to have it down. And try as I might, I just couldn't be perfect.

I couldn't be the perfect student nor the perfect friend. I couldn't be the perfect daughter or the perfect girlfriend. Perfect Kristie simply didn't exist, especially at work where it seemed like all the rules favored the perfect. They even had a perfect rubric and a perfect pamphlet produced by the perfect Department of Education of the most perfect state. Normative perfect 24/7.

I don't know about you but whenever I've tried to be perfect for a 24/7 stint, or maybe even just for one class, things tend to go awry. I just can't suppress, repress, digress the human being in me. It's been there since the beginning and it will be there in the end.

In fifth grade I had this red short sleeved T-shirt with a picture of a string bean on it and the caption read, "I'm a human bean." As an experiment we should all, young, old, single, coupled, working, retired, get one to wear 24/7. And when someone asks about it, don't just confess, proclaim.

Just Say Yes

Snow day! Wake up and shout "Yes!" to a gift day of possibilities, a chance to catch up on all dreams deferred, those small and large, shallow and deep.  That book I couldn't finish? Yes, I can.  That blog I've been meaning to write? Yes, I can. That nap I long for all week? Yes, I will. That sink I've been meaning to clean? Yes, I can. (But I probably won't.)

I'm sick and tired of the every day "No." No,  don't eat that. No, we could never do that. No, no one makes a living doing that.  No, you shouldn't watch Signs, again. You've already seen it at least six times.

In improvisation classes there is only one rule, say yes. I think we should all live by it. Without yes, fear thrives. Without yes, innovation dies. Without yes, society stagnates. Yes is so much more fun.

Yes didn't stop me from leaping at the chance to teach in England for a year. Yes didn't stop me from going on safari in Kenya. Yes didn't stop me from flying solo to New Zealand. Those experiences are embedded in my world view and undoubtedly make me a better person for having had them.

Is saying yes always easy? Not necessarily. No is the easiest word in the world to say. No requires no forethought, no contemplation, no bravery. Yes takes real courage, real conviction. No is the coward's way out of complexity, of challenge, of life.

At the end when I take my own accounting, how sad it would be to continue to declare final, definitive "nos." I hope to be uttering "Yes, I pursued my passion. Yes, I did it all, Yes, I have no regrets. And most of all Yes, I loved and was loved."

My Ever Changing List of Biases

I'm very into making lists of late.

Subject to Change Biases

On human nature:

1. Teenagers lie. Little kids lie. Grownups lie. All lies feed on desperation and fear.
2. Fear is a terrible motivator. So are grades.
3. Punitive measures lead to stagnation. Risk taking requires an acceptance and embrace of failure, not a public shaming. Innovation only results when repeated failure is allowed as a path from which to learn and improve.
4. Procrastination sucks your life away, minute by minute.
5. Pets restore our souls by making us focus on compassion and caring for another.
6. Our priorities as a nation are clearly warped when we financially reward celebrities and athletes with vast, enormous sums of money but can't increase the minimum wage to keep up with decades of inflation.
7. Sport stadiums should be paid for by the people who use them, [not the government at any level]; community centers, parks, bike trails, libraries, and swimming pools should be paid for by everyone. (I stole this from Doug Johnson.)
8. It's never really about you.
9. Cell phones are evil and will lead to our downfall. It's already started, BTW.

About education:

1. A teacher's job is to educate the whole person, regardless of subject area. Our primary goal in providing education is to make better human beings, not to raise test scores.
2. To that end, our nation and our educational systems are suffering from dire lacks of loyalty, respect, and compassion, at all levels.
3. The best and brightest are never going to go into or stay in education so long as teachers do not have professional autonomy and are themselves, treated like students requiring intensive supervision who must always ask for permission.
4. Creativity, empathy, and humor are as important to success as reading, writing and numeracy.
5. All citizens should pay for public education through taxes. All schools should be funded equally. I do not want to live in a nation of idiots. Look at what's happened to Congress.
6. All kids should be treated the way we ourselves would want to be treated. If you wouldn't subject your own child to "it", no one else's should be.
7. On data, evidence and statistics: math never lies, except when it does, through omission or manipulation. As Einstein once said, "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."
8. Standardized test are more about discrediting public schools and teachers in service of making huge privatized corporate profit than improving education.

 
 

#Nerdlution Day 2: Conceptual Happiness

I'm going to exchange today's scheduled exercise for composing another blog post because it makes me happier. Go Nerdlution.

Yesterday's list of things that make me happy was a combination of both things and experiences. For today's list, Part 2, we're going to go a bit more conceptual.

Slightly More Conceptual Things That Make Me Happy, in no particular order

1. Autonomy.  Independence, determining one's path, making decisions based on the sum total of your years of knowledge and professional expertise. I own my own home, my own car, I am responsible on a daily basis for many young adult lives. I make decisions for myself, my own well-being, my own future and the future of my four cats. What gets in the way of my autonomy will be discarded and circumvented. Asking permission does not a happy state make.
2. Choice. It's all about deciding for myself, not because convention dictates so. I select, I pick over, I sort through, I weigh the pros and cons, I am the decider. No one else.
3. Creativity. As soon as you ignore whatever is at the heart of expressing one's own creativity, or let it lay dormant, or suppress it, happiness diminishes in droves.
4. Loyalty. To principles, to relationships. Administrators throughout the country play leap frog from district to district, questing for their own superintendencies. And even then they jump once again. Many school district employees no longer feel their employer's loyalty. At the heart of our educational reform woes is a lack of loyalty to one another, to best practices in spite of standardized testing, to the best interest of the student as a person. We'd all be happier with a lot more expression of loyalty.
5. Prosperity. Having enough, food, shelter, transportation, to feed the cats, to buy medicine, to buy books, to go to movies, to travel. Gratitude holds the hand of prosperity.
6. Intelligence. Knowing stuff makes me happy. Being with other people who know stuff, no matter their age, bliss.
7. Language. Without language we would be utterly lost. Language development is a marvel. Think of your brain deciphering and constructing language, the fact that we can talk to one another, think to ourselves, refer to the past, present, and future, express the imagined and the real, learn other languages, create our own languages, hear it, see it, express it metaphorically, what can language not do?
8. Music. The language of emotion, mainlined. There you go.
9. Freedom. This or that. There or here. Take out or home cooked. Dog or cat. How 'bout both? Single or married. Live alone or in a commune. Good or evil. Some or all or none. FB or Twitter. Lady Gag or Madonna. Fat free or full of fat. Marvel or DC. Yankees or Mets. Physics or chemistry. Flute or saxophone. Stewart or Colbert. Patrick Stewart or Ian McKellan. The Kite Runner or A Thousand Splendid Suns. Gandalf or Galadriel. Well, you see where this is going.
10. Love

#Nerdlution

I'm part of a movement. It began on Twitter, today. A few of us readerly types, those who hang out at nerdybookclub, have merged the oft ill-fated New Year's resolution with our nerdy book club selves. The result? #nerdlution.

 The rules for the #nerdlution are as follows (copied from Chris Lehmann):

Starting tomorrow, Monday, December 2...pick one thing or many things you want to commit to doing over the next 50 days. We were thinking it’s something you do every day, but really it’s up to you.  The focus here is making a change that matters...There is only community, support, and love for making and doing good things.

A Very, Very Important #Nerdlution FAQ

• Can I just pick one thing? A: If it makes you happy.
• Can I pick 5 things? A: If it makes you happy.
• Is it okay if it is not fitness related? A: If it makes you happy.
• Is it okay if it is reading related? A: If it makes you happy.
• Is it okay if I’m really, really scared but really, really inspired? A: If it makes you happy.
• Is it okay to only do something 3 times per week and something else 2 times per week? A: If it makes you happy.
• If I mess up and miss a day, can I make it up another day? A: If it makes you happy.
• If I mess up, can I just skip that day? A: If it makes you happy.
• Should I tell everyone if I’m having a hard time? A: If it makes you happy.
• Should I celebrate little accomplishments? A: If it makes you happy.
• Can I modify my goal if I need to? A: If it makes you happy.
• Should I give up if it doesn’t go well? A: No.
• Should I feel alone in this or like people are judging me? A: No. (Because we’re all gonna screw up a little or a lot, let’s be honest.)

Me again. Why join? Let's face it. We all need to be happier. We all want to be happier. What I love about this movement is its focus on what actually makes you happy. Think about it. I mean, really think about it. When is the last time you truly examined what makes you happy and matched your thoughts to actions of fulfillment? When is the last time someone asked you what truly makes you happy and not just listened, but heard you and supported you in your efforts? Can you be honest (and brave) enough with yourself (and them) to tell the truth?

Let's find out.

Things that Make Me Happy, in no particular order, and for varying durations (Part I)

1. Kittens and Cats--observing them, being near them, petting them, playing with them and having them sleep on me
2. Puppies and Dogs--see above only add being greeted with utter joy
3. Chocolate, preferably milk (see previous blog post)
4. Writing, and I mean actual writing including revising and editing. I'm not one of those writers who dreads writing and subsequently expels a huge sigh of relief when finished. No, no. I live for the composition process itself, rife with problems to solve, words to find and rearrange, paragraphs to move about. I really like that part. I really like mastering that part. Have I mentioned how much I like messing around with that part?
5. Gardening
6. Making a great joke, stellar one liner or wry observation
7. Reading an amazing book like The Kite Runner or Wonder
8. The ocean, lakes, rivers, brooks, ponds in close proximity
9. Watching or performing in musicals although I think I might have been happier if just once, instead of the understudy for the lead, I had actually been the lead
10. Napping on my mother's couch, which is the most amazing and perfect nap couch ever known to humankind. Its exquisiteness exceeds the words available for describing it. It has never failed to lull me to sleep, a feat fraught with failure in my own bed and on my own couch and even on a 21 hour flight to New Zealand after taking Ambien. If I could pay an airline to install my mother's couch as my personal first class sofa, I would fly again. And again. And again.

And you?

Things You Probably Don't Know About Me

Preface

Every year I give my students a list of about twenty items entitled "Things You Probably Don't Know About Me". The list covers food preferences, pet peeves, travels, family information, likes and dislikes, a listing of pets past and present, and some of my idiosyncrasies and quirks. It ends with, "In 2004 my father died of colon cancer and it is by far the worst thing that has ever happened to me."  Why do I share that difficult and sad piece of information with teenagers? Because teachers are themselves human beings, ones whose primacy lies in the custodianship of humanity. My goal is to foster mutual respect, and if I can inch developmentally self-absorbed adolescents (and myself) just a bit closer to empathy, the world wins. So I also ask them to provide me with the same information about themselves.

For humanity dear readers, here's what you might not know about me.

1. I choose milk over dark chocolate, every time.
2. I have traveled to 5 continents and 18 countries.
3. I am hopelessly, endlessly, infinitely in love with the ocean. I have to see it, breathe it, bathe in it. Wherever I have been in the world, I have taken comfort in the sight of water. It is home.
4. I had an Aunt Bambi. Yes, named for the movie.
5. I know how to drive a snowmobile, stick shift car or truck, ride a motorcycle or dirt bike, and fix a faulty catalytic converter.
6. I learned to read off of Dixie Riddle Cups.
7. If I could have superpowers they would be these, in this order: invisibility, teleportation, ability to heal. Maybe read minds but only if I could turn it off at will.
8. I have received a few speeding tickets, hence the teleportation.
9. I had a penpal in Quebec in eighth grade. I can't remember her name but I know she was pretty.
10. I hate noses. Not sure anyone can accommodate that preference but thought you should know.
11. I hate nostrils even more. I hold no objection to their function. I just think from a design standpoint, things could have been done in a more aesthetically pleasing way.
12. I can't stand heat and humidity, mostly 'cause they give me diarrhea. TMI?
13. Peach fuzz gives me goosebumps on my arms and legs. I only eat nectarines.
14. I don't drink coffee or alcohol. Ever.
15. I have chronic insomnia, delayed sleep onset, and sleep apnea. Upon waking, my first thought is typically, "No."
16. I was in love for a very long time and when it ended quite badly, my heart was broken. I have not been able to put it back together yet.
17. Horses scare me.
18. I can play chess. My brother taught me how to when I was six.
19. I believe in Atlantis but not God.
20. I've been in a submarine, a windmill, a helicopter riding over a volcano; I've ridden an elephant and a camel; I have swum with dolphins, held a wombat, a joey and a koala, and kissed a kangaroo; I have hand fed kangaroos and lorikeets.
21. From 1996-97 I lived in Gosport, England, 2 1/2 hours southwest of London.
22. I tried to bungee jump in New Zealand from a tower. I froze, burst into tears, and they had to let me down. I do not regret not bungee jumping. I hate falling but love soaring. I did a simulated skydive that very same day instead and LOVED it.
23. I love cake. Chocolate frosting but not chocolate cake, mostly lemon. I don't like chocolate pudding either, but love hot chocolate. No chocolate ice cream.
24. I tip well.
25. I have three small, mostly linear scars from my gall bladder surgery.
26. Contrary to public opinion, I am an introvert, which means being around large numbers of people for significant amounts of time drains me of energy. It takes me days to recover from sustained events like multiday conferences. It means I prefer some quiet, alone time during which I can think, ponder, putter, be creative, write, read, snuggle with cats, and play my flute. One Thanksgiving when I was about twelve, in the midst of the festivities I went out into the driveway where our boat was stored, crawled under the tarp and read for a few hours. (My dad set me up in a giant blanket/sleeping bag combo.) Being an introvert means I feel more comfortable talking for an hour to a group of 900 people than at a cocktail party speaking one on one. I value intimacy highly as something to be cultivated over time, not instantaneously attained. It means I sometimes come off as aloof. But don't let it fool you. I am as passionate as they come.

Your turn.

Things I Probably Shouldn't Say in Public (Service)

My recent role change at work has given way to some awful guilt. I anticipated such a burden but it still haunts nevertheless. This week the little birds that come my way have shared that my former AP class is suffering in my absence (also anticipated) and as a result, my "writers" are far from the writerly existence I typically create for them (not as much anticipated). I must cope with both the tremendous sadness I feel upon hearing such news and the numerous inquisitive, sometimes bewildered, public challenges of my decision to leave the English classroom. Some parents and students find my decision so inexplicable as to even (wrongly) suspect me of having done so only through coercion. I have only this response for that chorus of whys.

When helping a student in the library who would have been in my AP Composition class had I not changed to Library Media Specialist this September, I was accosted with a "You abandoned us." I replied, "But, I'm here now." And I am, but not in the same way. It can never be the same. The same was glorious, and draining. Intellectually stimulating, and always demanding more of me. I could never do or give enough. The same would have meant 16-18 hour work days with minimal social interaction other than with those exciting young adults. The same would have meant nights and weekends consumed with reading and editing their writing instead of working on my own. The same would have meant many sleepless nights and a continuous cycle of exhaustion, an infinite perpetuation of the hermetic existence I have been living for the past ten years.

I know, and many of you know, the same was also an endless cycle of exhilarating moments in the classroom, of great laughter and joy, of the celebration of success, a deep belief in the difference I was making in how young people thought and wrote, a satisfaction that I was contributing to something far larger than myself in training a whole cadre of them to use their words for good. But none of that work left any time for my life. And I could not figure out how to do it so well without sacrificing that very life, a life that was moving along at a clipped pace without me.

There is not an endless future set before me as there is before my students. I do not wish to spend the finite time left acquiescing to the politics of educational reform, supplicating within the evaluation process to those who have less experience and knowledge, justifying my success via my students' standardized test scores. You want to measure my success? Ask my kids. Read their amazing work. I've saved most of it along with the scores of letters and notes thanking me. Maybe you should read those, too. I do not wish to be a part of this corrupted and corrupting system. I do not want my presence in it to be interpreted as silent approval.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still in, though now in a strange subset consisting of those of us in education who haven't given up but have taken a turn away from the grind and the politics and the crazy inherent in large systems. Maybe I could have remained in the superstar verse if I had come home to warm meals, a cleaned house or someone else taking the garbage out. When I read the Twitter feeds, conference session descriptions, and books written by the teacher gurus I admire most, I can't help but notice they all have a partner at home, one nourishing them, applauding them, supporting them. And as a feminist, and a single woman who has never heard the biological clock tick, it pains me to say, maybe I could have kept going if I had had some partner support or if my four cats had learned to cook and empty the litterbox themselves. Perhaps I would not have been quite so emotionally and physically exhausted with another body hovering in my universe. But I didn't have that support and in part, the disciplines and actions that made me a great teacher kept me from even meeting a potential partner. It was time to save my own life.

Because let's face it, I'm half way done. Likely more than half way. I still have unfulfilled ambitions and dreams and hopes. But my window of second chances is closing. As I relearn what it means to have my own life (so warped was my previous existence), I'm not sure what to do with the guilt and sadness, if it even rightfully belongs to me. Confronting who I am if not the amazing English teacher is scary. I'm redfining amazing Library Media Specialist through my consulting efforts for faculty and writing coaching for students. But my whole identity will not be, can not be, Library Media Specialist. It's time to exist beyond the school walls, beyond the walls of my house, where the world awaits on afternoons, on nights, on weekends, and maybe even on the page.

Nature or Nurture?

I stink at nurturing myself. Really stink at it. I sat on the couch through one of the worst movies ever on Saturday afternoon, Event Horizon, for two and a half hours thinking "I should turn this off" but I didn't, not once. In it, an experimental spaceship named Event Horizon navigates by folding space, enabling the shortest distance between two places to no longer be a straight line and thereby doing all sorts of funky things to the space time continuum, effectively allowing the ship to outrun light speed. This space folding concept has fascinated me ever since I read A Wrinkle in Time seven times in the fourth grade. Author Madeleine L'Engle (Smith '41) deemed it a tesseract; I just thought it was cool. But this concept took up a mere five minutes of plot time. The rest was dedicated to a search for a missing crew, followed by a realization that the ship had traveled to hell and brought hell back with it through a black hole and hell was now living within its walls. The crew then begins to die off in various hellish hallucinatory ways, one by one. I spoil this only  to spare you the agony I experienced at its hands because as I said, I really stink at nurturing myself.

Because of my profession, teaching, I am used to giving, giving, giving to others. It feels natural, it is habitual, it is ingrained. But after twenty plus years of donating, I need some return. So foreign is the concept of nurturing myself that I am about to hang a list of how to do so in my house in strategic places so that when I blank out, I can refer to it. Things like:

• have a cup of tea
• drink a glass of cold water
• make an ice cream cone
• take a long walk outside
• sit by the river
• listen to Broadway show tunes
• take tap dancing lessons
• go to a concert
• go to a play
• go to a museum
• go to Boston
• go to NYC
• make a lunch date with _________
• travel
• walk Mark's dogs
• cuddle LP (Little Pup)
• garden
• write, write, write
• go to writing conferences
• play your flute
• find the creatives
• hang out with the creative types a massive amount

Ridiculous to have to remind oneself to take self-care by posting a written list? Absolutely. Necessary in this whirlwind world? Perhaps. Up against such natural self-sacrifice, I must conscientiously choose nurture because it doesn't choose me.

We Few, We Band of Brothers

For my AP kids taking their AP Composition exam tomorrow

(based on the Henry 5th St. Crispin's Day speech):

By Jove, I am not covetous for each a score of five,
Nor care I who doth feed upon your essays.
It yearns me not if disagreeable men your multiple choice score;
... Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
This day is call'd the AP testing day.
Those who outlive this day, and write safely home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse at the name of AP Comp.
Those who shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is AP test day.'
Then strip his sleeve and show his scars, on callous'd hand and laptop screen
And say 'These writing wounds I had on AP Comp day. Ear-ned Ethos!'
Old men forget; yet not all logos shall be forgot,
But we'll remember, with advantages,
What artistic feats we did compose that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in the mouth as household words- Deep River and Chester and Essex
Block 2 and Block 4 be in their freight train cups freshly rememb'red.
This story of pathos shall the good parents teach their children;
And AP Comp, AP Comp shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of AP Comp brothers;
For he to-day that writes his rhetorical analysis, argumentative and synthesis with
me shall be my wordsmith brother;
And all in Deep River now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their wordsmithhoods cheap whiles any other speaks
of those that fought with us upon AP Comp testing day.

A Massive Dose of Truth Telling

On the first day of class I tell my writing students I will teach them everything I know about writing, knowledge acquired over years of study and practice, provided they promise me one thing: to use what I teach them about writing for good. Once you know how to craft language effectively, once you find your voice, once you know how to unleash words upon others for the greatest impact, you can do so either with grace or with malice. Lately I feel like malice is winning out in so many arenas, in Newtown and in Boston, and by proxy at the NRA national conference and in Congress, though not necessarily in my students' work. As we read through Hamlet, witnessing firsthand Denmark's disease and decay, I was thrust into the world of malice quite tangibly, surrounded though not yet consumed by it. Through Shakespeare's mirror I could clearly see the field of education's corrupted reflection and for at least the past two years, those of us in education have heard little but malice directed at us every day.

Current education reform places the entire blame for America's academic woes on inadequate teaching, ignoring the larger culprit of poverty (and all of its subsequent accoutrements) which has been proven statistically to be the overwhelming determining factor in student achievement. Billion dollar money maker corporations who know nothing about children or learning bear no shame for their purposeful malicious ignorance. Driven by their lobbying efforts (a whole lot of wordsmithery), states have granted these corporate managers unfettered access in a misguided effort to raise the achievement levels of children when all that's really being raised is profit. Most of these billion dollar "reformers," in the corporations and in the legislatures, have spent zero time in the classroom other than when they were students so long ago. And coupled with their glaring ignorance of pedagogy, child development, and matters of curriculum, all more significant factors than rigorous tests, they possess a total lack of ethical sensibility. The rot has extended down the food chain to even educators themselves, largely administrators, who seem more concerned with test scores and numerical data than nurturing students and staffs and their unique talents. These same tainted administrators tell half truths, often by omission, to staff and students regularly as they build their resumes in a quest for superintendency. These same corrupted administrators would throw a teacher under a bus without second thought if it meant pleasing a parent, avoiding a lawsuit, or impressing their supervisors. Unprofessional, immoral, they inexplicably behave with impunity. How many educators out there haven't yet been caught desperately manipulating test scores like those in Atlanta and Chicago?

To see one's profession become so grossly distorted, to face such an unstoppable flesh eating disease consuming all in its path, spawns futility. One toll already being paid is one of collective silence and fear. In a fit of learned helplessness against such overpowering gangrene, many teachers have simply amputated their will to fight. In a slow chipping away of one's integrity, one's passion, one's soul, we wonder what will, at the end, remain?

I can only hope that my colleagues and I may be buoyed enough by the rising number of Davids out there challenging these Goliaths. The teachers in Seattle who refuse to administer standardized tests, the parents who refuse to subject their young children to hours of testing at the expense of other active learning opportunities, the state of Kentucky calling for a moratorium on the new CCSS online assessments until Pearson can eliminate all of the connectivity and scoring issues, in their slingshots rest words, spread by social media, spread at education conferences, spread among the disheartened, disenfranchised, and the discouraged.

For through all of my experience I know this. If we do not use our words for the betterment of society and ourselves, if we do not use our words for good, if we do not write the truth and speak it repetitively despite possible repercussions, malice wins. When that day arrives, I fear a large number of incredibly talented, beloved teachers will leave the profession in droves. I may be one of them, And it is unlikely that the best and brightest among us will line up eagerly and passionately to join in the festering decay that remains.

Malice or good? It's time to choose.

Walk On

I am supposed to be working today, my vacation day, grading papers and worksheets that have accumulated over the last two weeks. I set this day aside for this dedicated purpose but it is now the furthest thing from my mind. I know we're supposed to carry on, that carrying on is the only option in the face of unpredictable horror. But I am a little bit stuck, stuck in the repetitive newscasts, stuck reading my Twitter feed, stuck on Facebook. As during the early hours of 9/11, I find myself simultaneously drawn to and repelled by the constant speculation and the never ending loop of gruesome, scary images, images of bloodsoaked concrete, bewildered faces, staggered and staggering bodies.

I need to shut it all off but I was born in Manhattan. I've lived in both New York and Boston. My friend Nada's apartment was at the finish line on Boylston. I am tethered to these places by my own history, my family's history, and the history of many of those with whom I grew up and studied side by side. Many of my former students currently attend college and graduate school in Boston and I frantically scoured Facebook for news of their well-being. Considering the alternative was simply too much, too much after Newtown made me imagine over and over again losses so unfathomable that even now, months later, I write with tears in my eyes.

Most of us will spend the day hoping, praying we don't personally know anyone harmed by these circumstances but inevitably we will. It is a knowing rooted at the very level of our DNA. We share the same atoms, breathe the same elements, come from and return to the same stardust. As humans we are linked by gossamer threads of love and beauty which radiate in rippling concentric circles so that none of us can ever, ever remain untouched, unscathed, unaffected by such tragedy. There is no not knowing. 9/11 taught us so. 9/11 also taught me that the courage of the first responders and the bystanders and the doctors and that of the Bostonians who opened their homes to those who needed them yesterday should bolster my resolve. My God, what those people do and see. Did and saw.

Perhaps it is self indulgent to sit as a bystander with the same 9/11 confusion and disbelief, reliving it on this day as so many others must also be. After all, such paralysis is counted on, acts like these purposefully aimed at keeping us immobile, frozen, unable to move forward. To luxuriate in such sad stillness might be framed as the ultimate act of selfishness given that so many of these runners, their family and friends, have literally lost their limbs, legs which carried them to personal and national victory. But the spirit of ambulation inherent in being human need not be limited to the course of one marathon. To honor these victims, their spirit, the essence of what it means to be human, I will have to leave that indulgence aside for a few moments today, to at least walk on, even if just the tiniest of steps.

He's Gonna Eat the Goat?!

Have you noticed? Goats are ubiquitous. I noticed right after viewing the Doritos Superbowl ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d8ZDSyFS2g) conceived by two Connecticut gents from Simsbury. (Spoiler Alert) I can't get enough of the human screams emanating from the angry goat (wait for it at :18) and apparently neither can three and half million other people who have since viewed that spot again. I immediately shared it with my media class (for our unit on advertising, no really) who simultaneously erupted into deep guttural laughter and high pitched shrieks of surprised joy then asked for more. That spot seems to have struck a chord with a whole herd of humans out to milk the joke for all its worth. Graze through the goat oeuvre on youtube and you'll find goats screaming like humans, goats yelling like humans, goats screaming like humans (compilation), goats that sound like people, goats talking like people, goats singing happy birthday, goats singing Christmas carols, and the latest craze, goats yelling in the middle of Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift songs (although there is some recent controversy over whether it's actually a goat or a sheep.) At any rate, it seems a great portion of our nation is obsessed with goats.

Perhaps the nation's greatest obsession with goats came in the form of the US government's 1979 experimental training program First Earth Battalion, which aimed to tap the psychic potential of soldiers to kill debleated goats using only their minds. This military foray into the paranormal is thoroughly documented in the Jon Ronson book, The Men Who Stare at Goats (film adaptation starring a bearded George Clooney). Those who could kill a goat simply by staring at it for weeks on end were poised to be our greatest generation of perfected soldiers, which perhaps explains why all wars since the 1970s seem to have gone slightly awry (though one participant claims to have successfully stared both his goat and hamster to death). Most assassins don't have the luxury of staring at their target for weeks on end. People with that kind of time to spend with goats tend to be lonely goatherds whose primary goal is corralling, not staring, at them as they graze.

Speaking of corralling, my brother the maple syrup king of Massachusetts (Windsor Hill Sugar House), corrals his hobby farmer goats in the former dog run attached to the back of the house. His goats readily come up to the kitchen window for occasional pass through scraps and also proudly stand atop the dog house from which the dogs have been evicted. One Thanksgiving we were gathered round the table in the dining room with non goat acculturated friends when one of the goats meandered through the house in search of food, having butted in the back kitchen door to gain entry. After chowing down on the available dog food in Bandit's bowl, Peanut (or maybe Spike) climbed up onto the couch for a nap. We were unfazed, our guests not so much. In the best of Thanksgiving traditions, goats, like humans, consume everything in their path. Sometimes they even become the consumed.

Remember in Jurassic Park as the visitors, including the lawyer, the paleontologist, the mathematician, and the grandchildren, sit astride the empty T-Rex paddock waiting to view Mr. Hammond's reluctant to appear genetically enhanced phantasm? In an effort to entice the beast, a trap door is raised to which is chained a pure white goat. It takes a second for the intention to register but we see the terror dawn on young Lexie as she realizes what's at stake. In tremulous voice she utters, "He's gonna eat the goat?" You said it, baby. Trouble. (Click play) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLI4EuDckgM

 

 

It's one thing to eat a bleating goat. It's quite another to eat that goat's Doritos.

My "Last" Lecture

Randy Pausch died July 25, 2008 and although I didn’t personally know him, we shared a certain kinship (me and 3.5 million readers and 16 million youtubers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo). Randy was a teacher as am I. Randy’s bestselling The Last Lecture has now become his legacy in much the same way I like to believe that my teaching, with its combined learnedness, quirky self-disclosure and passion, serves as a continuous series of last lectures.

Facing imminent death, Randy questioned the lasting impact he could have on his young children, the youngest of whom may not even remember him in a few years. As a teacher, I similarly question my lasting impact on students. After all, it is the ultimate goal of teachers to reach students beyond the school day, beyond the semester, beyond school itself. Certainly, Randy wanted to be sure his children, his “defacto students” as I think all teachers’ children are, knew his wisdom and passions long after his death. The Last Lecture stands as testament to those, defining the values and habits of mind we as teachers and sometimes parents, wish to pass along, the legacy we hope will self-perpetuate across the generations to create a more learned, more compassionate, more fully developed, fulfilled, and successful populace.

Success in education is for some teachers (students, administrators, Boards of Education, parents and communities) defined by students scoring 5s on the AP test, or surpassing minimum requirements on the CAPT or acing the SATs and subject tests. Success is defined by National Merit Scholarship, landing in the top 10% of the class, 4.0 GPAs, quarterly grades of 98 or 99 or even 100. Success is attending an Ivy League. In and of themselves, these are not shallow, meritless goals to be belittled though many in America find it sport to do so (see Barack Obama labeled elitist for his thoughtful, highly educated approach). Ironically, aspiring to such achievements in America is laudable while achieving them is frequently a source of derision.

But too often, teachers, students, parents, administrators and Boards of Education, and the occasional Admissions Office, do not have formal tools by which to measure other forms of success in valid, reliable ways, and so the measurements we do have are decidedly incomplete. Therefore, these traditional (and traditionally) scored measures cannot be the types of benchmarks by which we solely define success. They represent what is captured within only the frame of a snapshot at a fixed point in time, providing us with a moment of focus at the expense of greater context. Five, ten, twenty years from now, do I want my students to remember my class as the 98 on my midterm exam and the resulting 5 on the AP test? Or would I prefer they write powerfully and precisely from the most romantic poems to the most elegant public policy speeches to the most clear legal documents to the most inspired civic minded letters?

Clearly, I want my students to know the difference between what is worth being familiar with and what is important to know and do. I want my students to be able to live and think independently using the structures, skills and knowledge of the past as starting blocks. Then I want my students to recognize how to use those strategies when confronted with new situations and problems because 21^st century students must be able to tackle big ideas and manage unfamiliar transfer tasks.  I want my students to know the difference between recall and application, between regurgitation and innovation. I want my students to tell me what they think and feel in elegant, concise, beautiful language. I want my students to create.

I want my students to think before judging the homeless person on the street, to recognize when and how political speeches, advertising and sound bites on the evening news manipulate their thoughts and emotions. I want my students to recognize and value the incredible freedom we have to put our thoughts on paper, and share them. I want my students to know how to heal themselves, their loved ones, and even complete strangers with their words. I want my students to care for strays, and root for the underdog, to be honest and kind, to weigh the facts before making a decision, to honor the lessons of history, and to judiciously employ the preciseness and power of words. I want my students to compassionately approach the neighborhood feral cat.

I recognize that these are a lot of wants. And yet here we’ve merely reached the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Late at night, when I am inconsolable and insomniac, as I often am, I take odd comfort in my wants, in my idealistic hope that my students will honor me, our time together, each other, and the privileged learning opportunities they have, by developing intellectual curiosity and a lasting love of learning, by developing  the intellectual habits of mind which lead them to discover knowledge in many disciplines, creating a constant thirst for knowledge and self-discovery, one that might keep them awake at night, too.

Oh, and one more thing. I want my students to go into the world feeling compelled to dine at the world’s smorgasbord, as if there were no other choice but to do so, as if by doing nothing but passively ingest, they would indeed starve.

 

Not Yet, Boba Fett

There's this great scene in one of my favorite novels turned movie Postcards from the Edge, when the Shirley Maclaine character (aka Debbie Reynolds) is hosting a party for her just released from rehab daughter (pretty much Carrie Fisher as played by Meryl Streep) and instead of focusing on her daughter's resilience, Maclaine steals the party out from under her. Streep's command party performance, a sweet and ethereal rendition of You Don't Know Me, quickly turns into a pointed commentary (for the audience) on Maclaine's absentee Hollywood starlet mothering but also functions as an addict's lament of the great estrangement from love--motherly, romantic, and self.

Maclain follows this existential riff with her own over the top command rendition of "I'm Still Here"  (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xnlgkl_shirley-maclaine-i-m-still-here_shortfilms). In a to die for red sequined top and a full red skirt (which quickly gets hiked up to there to expose Maclaine's dancers legs), Maclaine honors her guests and daughter with a song about her own staying power and her ability to survive her daughter's addiction; it's all about "her worshipfulness."

As I enter midlife, my disdain for Maclaine's poorly timed and skewed self affirmation has tempered and transformed. In a culture that devalues those growing older, especially women, her declaration now seems about so much more than simply shouting "Look at me. I need attention right now." It serves as a siren call, one beckoning us to look first at ourselves. In my midlife world this necessitates a temporal exploration. Who was I? Who am I? Who do I now want to be? That confident (though sometimes needy and sometimes selfish) bravura woman in red, where did she go? Because she existed.

She was there in the good daughter, the ravenous reader, the good student, the jokester, the socially satisfied, the college graduate, the English teacher, the amateur musician, the world traveler. But she faded into obscurity when those roles morphed drastically into betrayed lover and adult child of a deceased parent. Who could know a me blanketed by such sadness? Aloof, I derived intellectual satisfaction from my passionate and brilliant students while sometimes lacking my own, and found little to no emotional satisfaction save from my cats and my dogs by another owner. I could do with a little of that former selfishness, self importance, self care. Though you can't see it, my homunculus still hovers, passionately shouting from the rooftops things about which I care, loves deeply, strives to master the surrounding universe while being spontaneous, unpredictable, and layered. It is exhausting waiting for a manifestation of that woman in red. But fade to obscurity?

Not Yet, Boba Fett. I'm still in here.

This is Happening

I'm usually on top of pop culture happenings (this week The Harlem Shake, next week TBD) and especially pop culture catch phrases (this week It smells like frickin' Tijuana. What happened here? #newgirl, next week TBD). I've been a subscriber to EW (Entertainment Weekly) for as long as I can remember. I have a digital subscription to The Times. I consume story in its many forms, whether book, musical, movie, meme or on NPR, with a ferocity only matched by my disdain for reality TV (I draw the line at people less intelligent than me, my family, my friends, and my students making more money than the rest of us ever will). My virtual bookshelf on www.shelfari.com is locked in an epic battle with my college friend Barb, now a resident of New Zealand, for reader supremacy. I'm Wikispaced, LinkedIn, Facebooked and a member of the Twitterverse (@KristieSchmidt). I live tweet political speeches, elections, the SOTU, and entertainment awards shows. I've even participated in Twitterchats (www.tweetchat.com, #engchat), a nonlinear explosion of simultaneous threads weaving in and out of a central topic. And yet, one frontier remained unexplored. Until now.

The blog. I resisted the blog the way Jean Luc Picard (My friend Dawn married David Picard. Disappointing. But, they did name their son John [sic].) resisted the Borg. However, as we all know, resistance is futile so here I am. My friend Lisa (http://www.lisawieldswords.wordpress.com) has been blogging EVERY DAY for quite some time now. Her regularity and persistence awe me. My long term daily commitments extend to my cats (Buddha, Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Lucy). But Lisa has inspired me to take a leap, to make a new commitment. Since I don't make New Year's resolutions and I rarely set long term goals (that's another blog altogether), all I will say is that the line is drawn heah and now. I introduce you to Schmidtty First Drafts. Make it so.