The Secret Life of Teachers

This year Maia has an English teacher for whom there are no second chances.

Maia is now trying to improve her grade after failing to turn in a packet on its due date. Ms. English Teacher accepts no late work, and Maia hadn't yet learned that she should turn in all of the work she had done, even if a piece of it was still incomplete. Yes, I know, learning the system is one of the educational process of school. Some lessons just come harder than others...

So yesterday, Maia decided to stop by to show Ms. English Teacher her progress on another big project just to make sure she was meeting her expectations. Ms. English Teacher gave her work a fairly perfunctory glance, told her to shorten a paragraph and handed it back.

Maia left feeling as though her teacher were more dismissive than helpful. To explain Maia said, "maybe secretly inside she doesn't want to be a teacher."

Granted this is a big assumption on Maia's part, despite the fact that Ms. English Teacher's reputation proceeded her. But right or wrong, it was a huge reminder to me about the kind of message I want to send to the students I encounter each day. Am I happy to be there? Do I want to connect with them? Do they see that I'm on their side? It seems to me impossible to teach if your students think "secretly, I don't think she wants to be a teacher."

For Maia, she's going to have to figure out how to learn whatever the attitude of the teacher is.

Merge Early

merge early, expect

sudden slowing or

stopping, watch for

I am a poetry addict, but not a poet. And I look for it everywhere. Recently, this ghosted up on my computer when I opened it up. I thought someone had sent me some poetry, or perhaps had begun writing a poem on my computer. I was mesmerized. Watch for what?

When my old power book finally got it's systems in order, I recognized Chongo's driver's ed program on the screen. The ordinariness of its intended meaning took all the lovely excitement from me.

Except for the part that didn't, the part that still linked to the almost poem, that kept remembering -- all day -- expect sudden slowing.

Dinner Party conversation

A kindergarten teacher I know went to a dinner party with some of her banker husbands colleagues.

"So what do you do?" She was asked.
"I'm a kindergarten teacher."
A silent pause followed. "Well you can always move up, right."

Have you ever tried teaching kindergarten?

The educational value of the "The Simpsons

My kids have been watching The Simpsons for several years now. It's not always appropriate, but it's always funny, often educational and sometimes even "educational." We limited them to one show per day, not because of time but we just figured that was enough "education" for one day.

I'm sure more than a few thesis have been written about The Simpsons and their commentary on culture, politics etc. -- and my kids are the stellar examples of that Simpson influence. They've seen most of the episodes by now covering references from Nixon's Watergate to Shakespeare. Often, in the middle of a dinner table conversation we turn to explain something to the kids and they say "oh, we know."
"Really?" I'm always surprised. "Where did you hear about that?"
"The Simpsons."
It's an invariable answer -- I've heard it so much I'd roll my eyes if I wasn't so impressed with how complete the education is. Granted it's a superficial, humorous version of events or works, but what they know works like a hangar for the rest of what they learn on those subjects. It means they can sit at the dinner table and not be lost around adult conversation. I'm convinced it makes them more savvy in their understanding of our culture.

The other day Maia rattled of a speech from Macbeth. "Where did you learn that?" I asked.
"The Simpsons," she said. I rolled my eyes. "Well, I heard some of it on The Simpsons, and then I found it online and memorized it."

And isn't that the best thing an educator can hope for? When students learn enough on a subject to so thoroughly peak their interest, that they go out and deepen their understanding on their own.

Abundance

Abundance

Today a friend brought me basil from her garden. Masses of it, and I went looking for a tall, wide-mouthed mug to hold it all in water where it can grow roots and flourish for the next month or two. On my counter was this mug, needing to be emptied of all the odds and ends an open vessel accumulates on a counter, Abundance written in flowing lettering along the front.

My friend brought me this mug many years ago when the kids were little. She filled it with my favorite biscotti and dropped it by one day.
"Why me?" I asked her about the unexpected gift.
"Abundance just reminded me of you," she said.
Since that day the mug has sat on my counter to remind me of my good life. Today I filled it with the gift of basil from a friend's garden and I began again to think about Abundance.

There's a verse in the Bible that says "I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly."

Right now, I am ignoring the fact that I have an abundance of papers to grade. The chocolaty abundant smell of brownies is wafting from my oven because we are going to a goodbye party for a youth director who was loved abundantly. I'm sure the tears will be abundant.

I'm not sure I know what abundance life is, but I'm going to keep my eyes open to it. Anyway, my birthday is tomorrow and it seems like a good way to start the year.

What makes the blog roll?

Since it's summer, I'm reading a few more blogs than usual. And I've noticed something: controversy, it seems, gets the most comments.

People like getting "up in arms" about issues. In fact sometimes I wonder if bloggers look for issues to get people riled about. Sort of like the news on TV which capitalizes on the gruesome and notorious with sound bites to get you hooked in. The full story is seldom quite as interesting... except when it is more interesting and better read as a full story anyway.

But what concerns me as a person of faith is that in the blogging world we have a lot less grace for people or situations than we would in real life. When people make a mistake we're quicker to think about what a great post it would make, than to try and find out what really might be going on. Of course if I point the finger at the blog that pointed me to this thought I'd be succumbing to exactly the kind of problem I'm writing about. So in this unnamed blog, a known person was called out for a mistake. I fully agreed with the blogger's point -- but as the comments played out, I realized the situation wasn't as obvious as the blog suggested.

In the Conversations Project that our church did, we learned to practice interpretive charity which means what it says. We interpret a speaker's meaning with charity, even when our assumptions about what they said might push our buttons. We ask more questions to clarify meaning, and if we disagree, then we can discuss it, always seeking understanding, not reacting out of our own narrow assumptions.

Unfortunately, interpretive charity doesn't always make for titillating blogging.

Then again, neither does whining about your life and beating yourself up over the stupid things you do... which is another unnamed blog I've had too much time to read (in case you're a digger, it's not one of the sites I follow publicly).

But I'm still going to read all these blogs anyway... and keep writing my own occasionally. My friend's blog title says it all best: My Thoughts are So Important I Write them Down. Check him out -- http://iwritethemdown.blogspot​.com -- when he writes, he's funny.

These hands

Sometimes, when Chongo is asked what career he wants to pursue, he answers, "a surgeon."

This would be a fine occupation to have, but Chongo says it in jest, not (yet?!) being an ambitious enough student to be looking down the road at all those extra years of study.

But when Chongo says he wants to be a surgeon, I think of one thing: his hands.

Chongo can do the most intricate, minute sculpting with those hands. Like this piece he created out of "green stuff."

But he is ornery. So when I go to take a picture of him working he does this:


And then he replaces himself with his alter ego.

Do they let ornery monkeys be surgeons these days?

When people ask him where he's going to college he says, "Stanford." If he ever becomes a surgeon who went to Stanford, no one will be more surprised than his mother. But with those hands, he could do anything.