Small Moves and Structural Issues

I've been thinking a lot about the huge structural issues that face us in education
Especially this year, as I started it with a group of other teachers being told to to brainstorm ideas outside of the box to fix issues. Then we did, and we're told, oh now we can't do that because of x, y, and z BS.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

My students struggle with the fact that the Castilian Spanish they're taught isn't the Mexican based Spanish they speak. They are made to feel less than because of this.
They struggle with math. Why do they need geometry? Algebra II? Pre-calc? Calculus? If they don't want to be mathematicians or engineers or scientists, why are we setting them up to fail? What if instead they could take coding? Financial literacy? Statistics?
Why do they take biology then chemistry then physics?

I think in many schools the structure, the "we've always done it this way" habits ride slipshod over asking pedagogical questions.

Why do we start high school at 7 or 730 when research tells us this is an awful idea? In most school systems it's because of athletics- games have to be at a certain time, so school days are programmed backwards.

Why do we continue to have bells? Teach classes in a certain order? Teach certain classes at all?

How often do schools, districts, stop to ask- why are we doing this? Where are we? Where do we want to be? What best serves our students?
Not in a lip service way, set within canned curriculums and narrow definitions, but in a real, enact true change way?

A common ask on social media is, "I'm looking for something to engage my English 9 students, what can you recommend?"

I used to answer these prompts with questions-
Who are your students?
What do they like?
Where do you teach?

There is no one size fits all to these questions. There is no one best practice, one good lesson, one great book choice.

I no longer answer these prompts, and fair or not, cringe when I see them, and the inevitable answers that follow.

It seems to encapsulate a lot of what I think is wrong with education these days. If you want to know what will engage your students ASK them. Ask them what they like, don't like, and what they want to study, trust me, they'll tell you. If you're not sure if they'll like a book, bring in copies of choices, give book talks, and see what they think.

Certainly I think it's important to stay up to date on the conversations about representation, windows/mirrors/sliding doors, and accurate history when choosing texts. But while these conversations are invaluable for shaping your thinking, the onus is still on you to make informed decisions. You can read how to disrupt Romeo and Juliet, find ideas on how to teach it in a way relevant to your students, but no one else is facing YOUR students every day. They don't know what will trigger Student A in your first period, or confuse Student B in fifth period. You are the one standing in front of them, so only you can make those choices.

Likewise, I don't understand how teachers can teach the same thing year after year. You don't have the same students, with the same backgrounds, same interests, so how are you teaching the same content, the same lessons, the same assignments? And then complaining they aren't engaged?

To me these snippets are evidence of the larger issues in education, that not all teachers are tailoring teaching to the students right in front of them.

Yes, there are skills each teacher, department, school, needs to prioritize. Things students should know. How to evaluate sources. How to support a claim with evidence. How to read and respond to a text. But none of those skills can't be taught with THUG rather than To Kill a Mockingbird. Ask your students what they think they're good at, what they struggle with. Design pre-assessments so you can SEE what concepts and skills your students already know, what you can skip, what you need to spend time on.

Check in with your students, over and over and over again. Why were they able to identify the theme of last week's story but struggle this week with the poem? Be explicit with them on why you're doing or trying certain things then ask for their feedback.

I'm not saying you have to stun the world with original ideas that remake the universe. The best teachers recycle ideas from others and make it their own. But when I use something in my class it's because I've decided it is what is best for MY students. It's the difference between deciding my students need a graphic organizer to help them see their essay plan and Googling for one that will work, and buying an entire writing unit off Teachers Pay Teachers.

I the think the least we can give our students is an education within the walls of our classroom that is designed for them. We may not be able to redesign the entire institution of education (although I've yet to hear a good reason why not) but we can at least do this, we can ask ourselves every day, with every resources, every text, every assignment- what is my pedagogical reason for doing this?

Exorcsm and Folklore

This is the first spring break I have nothing to do.
No dissertation notes, no book chapter to work on, nothing.
I DO have a book chapter I'm working on, but it's not due until September. I like having the extra time because it means I can jot down notes, revisit, come back, think through some more.

I thought I'd share some of my process for writing. While every project is different my process is pretty much the same.
So, I answered a call for papers for an edited collection on Theology and Horror. A friend emailed it to me, asking if I'd seen it. The deadline was just a couple of days away, but this was right up my alley, so I had no problem writing this: Priests, Secrets, and Holy Water: All I Ever Learned About Catholicism I Learned From Horror Films Abstract 

The abstract always gets tweaked and revisited before writing, so with my abstract in front of me I made a page in my writer's notebook where I outlined some of the main ideas. Then I add to it as ideas come to me in both Post-It and note form.

The different colors also show the different layers of my visits to the page.

Because I'm a historicist the first thing I started looking at was the years these movies came out since my analysis will look at home these movies are a reflection of their historical and cultural moment. As I started doing this work, I also looked at where I could rewatch these films- The Exorcist and Amityville aren't available on streaming, The Rite and The Conjuring are currently on Netflix. One thing that struck me as I was doing this very preliminary work was how many of these movies are based on or claim to be inspired by true stories. This then led me to a couple of anecdotes. I think these anecdotes would be an interesting way to start my chapter, but I don't know.

Anyway, I thought I'd share here along with my notes.

Long before I saw my first horror film I was surrounded by stories about horror films. Mom had several. One was about seeing The Exorcist when it first came out when there were subliminal images in it. She was deeply affected by this, supplemented by the fact that she was also high at the time. After the movie she was so traumatized by it that she quit her job because it required her to walk past the M street stairs. Her last story was a little more vague. Mom always claimed that the book The Exorcist was based on a true story, what happened to Shirley MacLaine and her daughter, the reason for her spirituality.
My godfather lives in Bayshore, Long Island, eighteen minutes from the Amityville house. I remember one time we were out running errands, I was maybe ten and he pointed out that we had just passed "the house." I didn't know then what the house was but the moment stuck with me.

These stories highlight the perception that these stories are true, real, and emphasize the role of folklore in these stories, the blurred line between truth and fiction. The Conjuring does this, so does The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and The Rite. Movies that don't claim to be based on a true story still evoke this perception of authenticity through story and photography like The Last Exorcism. Whether or not these stories are real is immaterial, what matters is that they are perceived to be real. As far-fetched as the idea of possession is to most people, the frame of the Catholic church lends an authority to these stories and the lessons they present to their historical and cultural moment. "Folklore is the traditional art, literature, knowledge, and practice that is disseminated largely through oral communication and behavioral example." These movies are folklore for their local narrative foundation, the implication that it's a shared story, and then again for its dissemination through film.

In each of these films there is a priest who is described as a savior because they have skills, knowledge, no one else has. This knowledge is secret, guarded information grounded in the very history of the Church. The priest's power comes from the rituals he performs, fueled by faith as enacted by humans and therefore fallible and corruptible. These movies draw very clear lines between good and evil and present literal not abstract examples of both. These are black and white worlds, easy to understand the rules to.
These narratives present certain implications to the Catholic Church beyond the reception by movie goers. Whether or not someone is Catholic they can probably still list the material trappings of the religion and its priests, an understanding built by popular culture presentations. In most of these films the priests are the focal point, the point of strength despite the fact that they are not infallible or all-knowing. These priests are role models, saviors, last resorts. Salvation rests on them, their actions, their secret knowledge. Each movie then uses this knowledge to teach specific lessons, tell specific narratives.

This is not a memoir: Jasmine

My MA program had regularly Sunday presentations of writing. In Santa Fe I participated every Sunday all three years I was there. I liked it because it was a regular reason to write. I was often in the computer lab rushing to print out my story just minutes before the evening readings were supposed to start. 
I was more productive over those summers with my personal writing than any other time.
I did not participate as much in Vermont because, like everything that summer, it was more pretentious.

This story is part of two different ideas. The first is this is not a memoir. The second is one of a bunch of vignettes set in a fictional southern town called Dogstar.
One of the reason I wanted to merge all my blogs over the last ten years or so was to focus more, and get back to, writing regularly.
So here you are.

Jasmine

If you ask people what the South smells like in the summer they will probably all tell you one thing- jasmine. For years, if you had asked me, I would have said the same thing. I wouldn’t say that now though. Now, I would have to say that it smells like death.

For Southerners, it’s easy to get the two smells confused. The sweet, cloying smell of decay can easily be confused with the sweet, cloying smell of jasmine wafting on the wind.

That summer was one of the hottest anyone could remember and people literally ran from one air conditioned building to the next. No one could stand to be out in the heat, there wasn’t a breath of relief to be had through a breeze and there was no shelter in the shade, although mentally you may have felt better for about ten seconds. It was also the summer that the air conditioning went out in the house. When faced with the dilemma of whether to pick up Mom’s prescriptions or pay R.A Hoy to come out and fix it, the drugs definitely won the battle. Although, looking back, Mom was so out of it, I don’t know if not having the drugs would have made a difference.

She lay in the darkened bedroom, with the shades drawn, and the ceiling fan making an annoying whomp sound every rotation. There were days when I envisioned standing over my mother on the bed and ripping the damn thing right out of the ceiling. These types of thoughts entertained me as I sat there day after day watching my mother melt away- both from the heat, and seemingly, from herself. We were long past the point where she knew who I was, or what I was doing there or even who or where she was. Her entire existence seemed to consist of this mental fog that kept her insulated from everything around her. She made no human noises, only grunts, or whimpers. I sat there by her bedside and simply waited. I knew I was simply waiting for when her chest would cease to rise and fall, but in the days that I sat there, it seemed as though I didn’t know why I was there.

I remember being struck by the fact that she seemed to have shrunk, with all that metaphor implied. The woman who had raised two children and managed businesses was not who lay before me. The crazy, adventurous hippie with a love for life wasn’t there either.  The person who lay before me, almost hidden under the covers had long ago ceased to be my mother who read me Peter Pan as a child and laughed, but always complied, as she left the window open for him to visit some night. My mother had disappeared long ago, in a ten year battle with a disease her doctors still had no explanation for. What was before me was simply a shell, a duty, and although it seems cold, an obligation.

The smell of that darkened room will always be twined with the smell of jasmine for me. It grew like a weed all over our property and the smell swept in through the windows I had opened in the hopes that the heat would be lessened. That summer, I remembered hating that smell. It seemed to soak into everything- the curtains, the sheets, my clothes, my hair. Even for the brief periods when Dad would relieve me I felt as thought that smell chased my all the way down the hall and outside.

Taking care of her had become like jasmine for me. It looks good on the surface, but you realize that it chokes you, clings to you, entwines you and won’t let go. Somehow, a visit home six years ago to see how Mom and Dad were doing had resulted in this tableau.

A 34 year old woman, with a fair amount of education who sat and waited for death. A woman who had not progressed, not moved forward, not lived for six years.

I knew intellectually that this was not my mother. I knew that in fact, when death came to claim her, it would be a mercy. A mercy to my father who had stood by as he watched the woman he loved become paranoid, delusional, mean until even that faded away. Myself, who couldn’t help but see that when she died, I would be free to live my life again. Of course, I no longer knew what that meant. I couldn’t comprehend a day that didn’t involve bedpans, and medicines and sitting in this small, dark room waiting. 

I refused to look past the moment. I couldn’t. I counted them as I counted her breaths- with the rise and fall of her chest. I seemed to exist in a place that was outside of the stream of time. As though we were being passed by in this small, darkened room that reeked with the cloying smell of jasmine and death.

My mother had always been my best friend. Even when I went to college and then moved away for jobs, our phone conversations stretched for hours as we kept up with each other. She’d only been sick a few years when that was taken from me. Her memory went, and she could no longer remember what I’d just told her, or why I was suddenly home when it wasn’t a holiday. Later she became angry and mean and paranoid, and as Dad walked outside or went for a drive, I was the one who stood there and took it. Who listened to delusions about us trying to kill her, steal from her, make her seem crazy. In those days, her hold on me was suffocating and strangling. I didn’t see a way out, and I had no time to try and deal with what the loss of my best friend meant. I could only deal with each day, and each new world I woke up to as she began to get worse every single day. There were no good days anymore, just worse and worse.

As I sat there, I tried to remember things we’d done with her growing up. I tried to imagine trips we’d taken, or holidays we’d shared. But it seemed as though every time I tried to call up an image one from the last six years would pop up- 

Her passed out in her closet, bleeding from where she’d hit her head. Her ranting and throwing dishes at me.

Her setting the kitchen on fire.

This was worse. This was so much worse than having a police officer come to your door and tell you something horrible had happened. This was not how it should be. This was not an accident, or horrible twist of fate. This disease that had robbed my mother of her life and my Dad of his love had subtly robbed me of my mother. Not only was she taken from me, far sooner than she should have been, but the memories, the feelings I had for my mother were lost.

I remember sitting there and crying when I realized I couldn’t recall anything about her that was not the last six years. Not a single experience, emotion, hug, laugh, memory would come. I sat there with my head bent, eyes unfocused as I willed my brain to recall a single thing. Nothing came. No amount of wishing or wanting made any difference. There was only the whomp of the fan and the smell of the jasmine. 

As I looked up, after I don’t know how long, I realized that there was no need to count the minutes. I no longer had my measure of time- there was no longer a rise and fall to her chest. Everything was still. Just the whomp of the fan and the smell of the jasmine.

In trying to hold onto my memories of her, I had lost my last moments with her. 

Spring Struggles

I wrote a thank you card today to a friend who checked on me after not seeing me online for over a week.
I was touched more than I can express that they did so.

Nehi and I live a quiet life. And most of the time I really enjoy it. I am an introvert by nature, so while I adore, love, am passionate about my teaching job, being "on" from 7a to 225p all day is exhausting. I come home happy most days, but tired. Our evenings and weekends are quiet. Uninteresting. Couch snuggles. Reading in the sun. Park walks. All good things.

But sometimes it's isolating. I have been in Albuquerque for six years now. I have lived in my house longer than anywhere else. I do not know what I expected when I moved out here to start my PhD, but I do not think I expected it to be so isolating. I was 15-20 years old than the other grad students, so I never found a friend niche. I also went through my program faster, so there was no cohort relationship. Then I was teaching high school full time as I finished my dissertation, further distance from my department and campus.
My high school is across town, and Nehi is alone all day, from 630a when I leave, until 3p when I get home (barring a short potty break visit from our dog sitters at 11a). This means that at the end of the day, I want to go home to my girl. It's also a huge school- 1600+ students, 100+ faculty, and high turn-over, so even in four years there, I don't really have a friend group.

And most of the time this is all fine. But when I struggle, or when things are bad, it does mean there is not just no support system, but no one even notices.

The last few months have been stressful. Finishing the book last semester. Applying for the last even higher ed jobs as I've aged out of relevancy. I have spent the spring semester living two parallel lives- trying to imagine myself in each higher ed job I've applied to and making plans for staying here.

Imagining a life of green. Being part of a community where I can build things, be supported, appreciated, teach students. Spend more time home with Nehi. Walk her in sunlight. Live a better quality of life.
When I apply to jobs I look up rents as a practical measure, while California's community colleges are appealing, I can't afford to live there. I am single, and my salary alone wouldn't get me a shed, let alone a house with a fenced yard for Nehi. But as I look up rental prices, demographics, history, look at maps, and images of homes for rent, I also try to imagine what life THERE looks like.

I think part of this is a benefit of being older and on the market, I know the basics Nehi and I need and I know what makes us happy. I have not applied for any jobs where we wouldn't be happy.

But the window is rapidly closing. My Twitter feed is full of people announcing their faculty positions for next year. The jobs wiki is full of "campus interview stage" and "offer made" posts. Out of the jobs I applied to according to the wiki most of filled. I have 7 jobs that were late posts that maybe, not likely, but maybe, I'm still in the running for. And by in the running, I don't mean I'm special, I mean I haven't read or gotten a rejection.

So the further we get into March the more I settle into the idea that I won't be going anywhere. Which you'd think would be a stress reliever, after six years at least I have a solid answer about what my life is.

Maybe.

I have always been anxious. One way I have coped with my anxiety is by counting, organizing, forcing order and control over out of control things. When I was younger, this manifested itself through obsessive counting of window panes, ceiling tiles, any repetitive thing I could count, as though the act of counting brought order to chaos. It did, but only the inner kind. My outer world remained chaotic. I was also know to take any mess in my room and shove it in my closet, waiting to spill out like some movie scene, and you don't need to be a psychoanalyst to realize how unhealthy that is.
Color-coding, routines, habits, rigid organization became my armor against a world I did not understand and never seemed to fit in.
I know paring down, and my systems of organizations these last few years have been a direct result of me trying to provide a refuge of order in a life that has been nothing but chaos. But so much of the last few years has been totally out of my control and all the color-coded Post-Its in the world can't soothe me through this.

When I was working on my PhD I didn't feel great, I put on weight, but with no support system I let myself off the hook as I focused on just getting done. But once I graduated I spoke to  my doctor about wanting to focus on being healthier.

In many ways I am the healthiest, happiest I have ever been. A year ago I radically changed my diet, cutting out processed, unintentional sugar, cutting most breads not whole grain, salads and veggies for days. Little red meat. No snacks. Desserts saved for weekends. Nehi is getting older, so we don't run or even walk the 3-6 miles we used to but weather permitting we walk every morning, and while our afternoon walks are more roll on the grass than exercise, still. Twice a week I walk the track at lunch, a nice mental and physical break from work stress.
I've been on anxiety meds since last summer, and it's made an amazing difference.
So I can honestly say, that by almost every single measure, I am living my best life.

But since August I have put on a horrifying 7" on my waist and I don't know how many pounds.
I am anxious that this means I'm horribly unhealthy and going to die.
I am anxious that this weight gain means none of my clothes fit, and I've had to repeatedly go to Goodwill to get bigger and bigger pants, again and again.
I am anxious in the mornings when I get dressed for work and feel fat and ugly and awful.
I posted a haircut picture the other day and was ashamed that I looked like a round, fat, I don't know what.

When I was younger I was thinner, somehow I feel like I was taller? But I was never someone that paid attention to what I looked like or fashion trends. I was a weirdo from elementary school on, as everyone, every peer, took pains to point out, and I made my peace with it relatively early on. I mean- look at those glasses, how could I not?

I rambled outside, through forests, then later beaches. I mostly had my nose in a book. I've always had an isolated life, and I was my version of happy.
But now, with my weight, I am not happy. I don't feel good. And I think that's the main difference. Online friends are quick to tell me I'm great. That I am 43, and perimenopause is a thing. My anxiety can't accept that I eat the same things, exercise the same, and yet the scale and measuring tape just keeps going up and up and up.
I feel the loss of my mom keenly. She died 8 years ago, at the age of 59. She had lots and lots of health problems I do not (I am religious about having my doctor check), so her experiences of aging are not a great indicator of what I am dealing with, what comes next. I still wish she was here for so many reasons. Maybe she could have told me about the night sweats, the waking up repeatedly throughout the night, a full night's sleep no longer an option. I remember her suffering from hot flashes, carrying fans, and as I dress in layers, and open classroom windows in 40 degree weather I sympathize.

Maybe the weight gain is a combination of stress and getting older.
But I can't control that. I can't add that math. I can't make order out of that.
Welcome to my hamster wheel. I do not know why I feel so awful, I know I can't control it, I don't understand it, so I feel more awful.

Spring break started today, and I have few plans. Reading in the sun, watching horror movies for a book chapter. Walking Nehi in sunlight. Small goals although I think in my enthusiasm with the library book requests I may have overestimated my reading capability (and there are four more waiting for pick-up at the library).

One thing I hope I can do over break is relax.
I don't want to keep going the way I am, spiraling with nothing I can latch onto to fix.

One thing I have thought about a lot the last few years is that I am 43, and I'm past the point where I can put off things thinking that I'll do X when Y happens. I want instead to focus on making my life NOW the best life. Quiet. Healthy. Lots of Nehi pets and snuggles. I have tried to focus on the things I can control, and building a life out of that.

My stress the last few months though has exposed all that for the lie it is.

So I don't know what the next few months bring, or how I will feel. But I am grateful for a friend who checked in and took me off the hamster wheel for a while. Here's hoping I can stay off it a while.