Some Pig

Parent/Teacher Etiquette

Given that New Year's Resolution time fast approacheth, I'm willing to bet that some of you parents out there are bound and determined to be more conscientious stewards of the next generation.  This seemed like a timely topic to discuss, particularly because of a couple of recent interactions I've had that are typical of what I see from my side of the desk. So here goes:

Typical Interaction #1

Jill Student misses a chunk of work, because of illness, family vacay at an inopportune time, whatever. Upon her return, Jill mumbled a few words my way along the lines of, "Whaddo I needta do?" but then didn't do much follow-through.  A few weeks after her return, I get a terse-slash-panicked email from home:  "Is Jill all caught up?  She says she is but her grades haven't changed.  Please let her know what she needs to do." I promise to touch base with Jill, but I don't see her except in class, which is packed with activity from beginning to end.  Jill makes no effort to see me before or after class, lunch, or during the team study hall.  I get an increasingly snippier email from home that night castigating me for not finding her, closing with the line, "Please notify me immediately if Jill's grades fall."

Typical Interaction #2

Mrs. Smith leaves a message on my voice mail, which I do not receive until midway through the morning.  I am teaching for the rest of the day, followed immediately by coaching until the moment I have to bolt for the door to pick up my own kids.  When Mrs. Smith comes to school to pick up Junior, she asks the school secretary to have me paged, please, because while she's here she wants to 'stop by and check in' about Junior's grades.  When the secretary asked if she wanted to leave a message, Mrs. Smith sighed and said, "Well, I left a voice mail once already..."

So here we have two concerned parents, doing what parents should do and trying to keep the home-school communication lines open.  However, we need to establish some common understanding and a few ground rules along the way, mmmmkay?

Common Understanding #1:  You have one kid in my class, I have 110

I am always glad when parents are concerned about their kids' grades and want to be informed.  But please understand that I am not your or your kid's personal tutor.  It is not my job to seek kids out and beg them to come for help.  I am sure EVERY parent would LOVE an automatic notification whenever little Araminta's or Beauregard's cumulative grade drops below a 97.825.  But let's be realistic:  If I emailed every parent of every student whose grade changed after entering an assignment, my fingers would be bloody, twisted stumps, incapable of blogging, Facebooking, or unwrapping peanut butter cups.  Not to mention I would die from the sleep deprivation from staying up all night to do so. So teach your budding geniuses from a young age to walk up to the teacher's desk; ask, "Is now a good time to talk about my missing work?" in their out-loud voice; then note down what the teacher says and follow through.  Let me put it this way:  If a hundred-dollar bill was riding on your child's completing this task, would s/he do it?  If the answer is YES, then s/he is capable of doing the same thing without the pay.

Common Understanding #2:  I got a lotta sh!t to do and not enough time to do it in

The way my current schedule works, I have between 45 to 90 minutes in the morning for any planning, parent meetings, researching, meetings with fellow teachers, photocopying, prepping, correcting, or conferencing with students that I might wish to do. Then I teach straight through the rest of the day, with a 15 minute snack/bathroom break and a 30 minute lunch break in there.  And no, I am not going to give up my lunch minutes (I can't call it a lunch hour) to return your phone call because you got on the computer this morning, freaked out about your kid's grade and want immediate answers.  Even if I *did* want to return your call ASAP, I have twenty-five kids in the room who will overhear this private and confidential conversation, which is totally not appropriate.  Really, would you call a doctor or a lawyer and expect an immediate response?  You will have to give me 24 hours.

Common Understanding #3: Advanced technology does not exempt one from taking initiative

Where I teach, Upper Socioeconomic Middle School, we have the full panoply of technological communications, including email, a school website, an on-line calendar where teachers can post links to homework documents, and an on-line grading system.  For some reason, this does not stop students from walking into my class and yelling, "Can you tell me what I'm missing?"  Um, NO.  YOU can tell ME what you're missing!  Granted, not everything we've done in class is immediately posted on-line, so I'm happy to fill in a student who really wants to know if something's gone astray, but it's somewhat galling to make all that information available and realize no one's looking at it.  That goes double for kids who walk in after a day's absence and say, "Did we have any homework last night?"  Well, did you look on the class calendar? "No."  Why not?  "I dunno."  That is only marginally more annoying than the kid who says, "Yeah, but I didn't get it."  Really?  I didn't realize assignments like "Finish taking notes on pp. 234-237" required much more explication than that.  Anyway, the point is that we do all these things to make life easier for everyone, but they only work if you actually USE them... so don't come asking me to fill you in if you can get it yourself with a little effort.

I'd like to offer a little perspective for all of us parents out there.  Think back to your own schooling. Chances are you were in school long enough ago that, like me, you had *no* idea what your grades were until the report card hit the desk.  There was no on-line calendar, no internet version of the textbook, no parent grade portal, nada.  Hell, we didn't even get school agenda books courtesy of the district to write down our assignments - that's what your book cover was for!  A lot of schools didn't even give out progress reports at the midpoint of the term. Your mom couldn't leave a voice message or an email for a teacher; she had to call the school secretary and woe betide Mom if she pissed the secretary off, because then messages never got through.  Now think about what you have available at your fingertips - the communication is amazing, and it's mostly for the better, but it's not a silver bullet.  If school is to work, everyone - teachers, parents, AND students - need to step up to the plate.  If we can all keep that in mind, THAT'S a resolution I can get behind.

Betcha It Needs 2 'D' Batteries and Comes Some Assembly Required

Lately, the elder daughter has started talking to herself as she plays, narrating out loud the little dramas that run through her head.  While this offers valuable insight into her psyche, sometimes I wonder if that's not a window better left firmly shut.  The other night, the psychodrama involved Santa giving India a "brain controller".  Thanks to this miraculous device, "the teachers and grownups will do anything I want!"

Fiddling While Rome Burns

"No kid wants to be in school," my student said, in tones ringing with conviction.  "No kid likes learning."  This sentiment came from one of my more capable students, a boy who is satisfied with the low B's and occasional C's he can earn by doing his work in fits and spurts during study halls and between classes.  "Yeah," a number of his friends chimed in, "school is boring!"

Those words took all the wind out of my sails for the better part of a day, so much so that I knew I had to address them.  I can't promise that this is what I said verbatim, but it conveys the gist.  I also can't promise that this will be coherent, because like the best rants, my best straighten-up-and-fly-right manifestos are a stream of consciousness.  Here goes:

I want to talk about something that was said in my class the other day.  I don't know the exact quote, but I believe it was something to the effect that no one likes school and no one likes learning.  First of all, any time you start talking in absolutes of 'no one' and 'everyone,' you're wrong.  You may think that no one likes school because the only people who respond when you say something like that is your friends, who are all happy to say, yeah, you're right, school is dumb.  But there are kids right here in this room who do like learning and who do want to come to school.  I know that because I was one of those kids, and when a kid like you said a thing like that, it shut me down and made me not want to be there.  This is the place where it should be SAFE to like learning and to want to grow and develop intellectually.  We should be celebrating learning and the people who like to learn, not shutting them down. 

The other thing I want to address is the whole school is boring issue.  You are here to develop the ability to think and to reason, so that you can do things like look to the past for patterns and trends, so that when you're running the country you can look at situations like Afghanistan and not get sucked into making the same mistakes that previous generations have made.  You seem to think that school has to be 'fun' and 'entertaining'.  School isn't meant to be fun.  You're not here to have fun.  It is not my job to entertain you.  School is meant to be challenging, and stimulating, and thought-provoking, and worthwhile, it's not just supposed to be fun.  Let me tell you, you live in a world of unparalleled material comfort.  We enjoy the highest standard of living in the world, at least as far as material possessions go.  Every day, you take for granted a standard of living that previous generations couldn't even dream about, that even today there are millions of people your age living around the world who would love to have a chance to be as bored as you are in school because they're working, all day, every day.  You've gotten to live this way because you've grown up in a world where America was the predominant power in the world.  You know what got us there?  A big part of it was because of the education that you seem to think is so pointless.  For generations, America had the advantage of being one of the most highly educated countries in the world.  Take basic literacy: When most people around the world couldn't read and write, we had nearly universal literacy.  When most other people in the world didn't have access to schools, we went to school through fifth grade.  Then it became an eighth grade education, and then secondary school.  We had the highest proportional representation of people who enrolled in college, who graduated, who had Ph.Ds.  We had far and away the best educated population in the world.  But you know what's happening now?  We're slipping in relation to other countries.  They're catching up to us and they don't need the U.S. anymore.  China graduates more engineers every year than the U.S., and they don't need to come here for jobs.  When Microsoft wanted to open a new research and development facility, they didn't put it in California, they put it in China.  You are going to be the first generation that sees America fall to being a second-rate power, like Spain, which used to have an empire and then lost it.  Or England, which used to have an empire and then lost it.  Meanwhile some Asian culture that doesn't care if education is 'fun' is becoming the next world power while you're whining about being bored.  We are fiddling while Rome burns.

The other thing that we're trying to do here is develop you into decent human beings.  One of the things I'm trying to do in this class is to show you how history has worked, so you can see what's wrong about how we treated Native Americans, how we treated slaves, how we treated WOMEN, who are half the population, so that if you are ever faced with a moral or ethical dilemma you will make the right choice.  I want you to be good people so that when you do have a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a spouse or a partner or a spousal equivalent, you'll be a good partner and parent and a contributing member of society.  You should be challenging yourselves to do the best you can, not sitting here whining that you're not having fun.  You say education is boring?  You know what I think is boring?  Skateboarding and paintball are the most pointless occupations on the face of the earth!  What's so great about standing on a piece of wood with wheels or running around in the woods?  But you know what?  I don't go stand in the middle of the skate park and tell you how stupid I think your interests are, don't sit in my classroom and tell me how dumb learning is.  Because there are still immigrants who come here from all over the world and work their fingers to the bone to have the chances you take for granted.  Now get to work.

***

After I finished, one little guy said, "Now I'm depressed."  This kid happens to be one of the most diligent, hardworking, conscientious kids on the whole team.  Meanwhile, the kid who made the original claim that set me off?  Yeah, he rolled his eyes about a zillion times during my diatribe, along with heaving heavy sighs and putting his head down on his desk.  "That's the problem!" I said to the diligent kid, shooting Mr. Fun and Games a Significant Look, had he bothered to notice.  "The kids who didn't need the lecture are the ones who get the message, while the ones who need it don't get it."

EDITED TO ADD:

It's not just me who feels this way, either.

Do They Still Call It "The New Math," And If So, Is That To Blame?

Student (happily): Only twenty-eight more days 'til Christmas!

Me:  How do you figure that, given that Christmas is on the twenty-fifth and today's the first?

Student:  Oh.  I thought it was on the thirtieth. 

Me: That still doesn't compute, dear.

Student:  It doesn't?  Why not?

I'll Have It Done by 2011

I'm taking a course on boys' learning and how it differs from girls'.  It's grad school lite - only two credits and one paper - which is what makes it feasible for me to take a course in addition to everything else going on in my life (which is way too much, but who needs sleep, anyway?).  For those of you who aren't au courant with the latest ed-think, the hot new research topic is Gender Differences: They DO Exist!  After years of concern about 'silenced' girls, the latest worry is about disengaged boys.  To summarize the research, and keep in mind that this is a generalization, boys are more physically active, have shorter attention spans, prefer the concrete and definitive to the abstract and amorphous, and like to compete as well as work collaboratively.

All of you who have middle-school-aged boys at home right now are rolling your eyes and saying, well, duh, tell me something I don't know!  But for years now we've been pushing reflective, collaborative learning, with lots and lots and lots of writing - which is absolute death on toast for a large subset of boys in our classes.  It's the usual pendulum-swinging issue, where we've gone way too far in one direction, and we need to do a little self-correction.

As I mentioned already, part of the class requirement is completing a paper.  I decided to do some original research.  Don't get excited, it's nothing that will earn me the Piled High and Deep after my name, but it will get the job done.  I decided to do some qualitative research (which is a fancy way of saying I'm not dealing with statistics) by identifying some uber-boys in my classes - boys who have all the qualities listed above in spades - and asking them to identify a teacher who was effective at working with them.  Then I would interview the teachers they named to see if there are any commonalities in how they approach teaching this kind of boy.

Sounds good, doesn't it?

I identified a couple of noodgy typical young men and drafted a BRIEF letter explaining what I was doing (all in simple, declarative sentences) for them to take home to their parents, and gave out the letters.  Then I waited for a response.  And waited.  And waited.  Finally I chased down a few of the would-be research subjects in question and asked them, politely, were they please going to respond to my letter?  The conversations ran basically along these lines:

Me:  Hey, Typical Boy, do you remember that letter I gave you last week?

TB:  (blank look)

Me:  You know, the one I gave you in ___________ (name of class) last week?

TB:  (light dawning) Oh yeah!  That letter! 

Me:  Well?

TB:  Um, what was it about?  I read it, but I didn't get it.

Me:  Well, as I said, I'm taking a course on how boys and girls learn differently, and I'm doing a project... (continue basically restating everything I said in the letter).

TB:  Oh yeah!  I remember that!

Me:  Did you think of a teacher for me to talk to?

TB:  Um, I forgot.

Me:  Did you let your mom or dad know about this?

TB:  No.  Was I supposed to?

Me:  Well, I really need to start working on this project, so do you think you could think of someone?

TB:  I guess so. 

Significant pause follows.

TB:  Can I have another copy of that letter?   I lost it.

Do you think the instructor will accept "my research subjects wouldn't cooperate so I couldn't do my homework" as a legitimate excuse?

Because My Intuition Says So, That's Why!

The day after Thanksgiving dawned upon us at my parents' house, minus a terminal case of indigestion, happily, but with a forecast of rain - for the whole day.  And it did.  Rain, that is.  For the whoooooole day.  The Whole. Freakin'. Day.  So when my friend Elaine called me and said, "I've had my kids for two whole days and I'm done," I did what any mother would do in similar circumstances - I invited her and her kids over to entertain me and my kids.  In doing so, I stumbled upon one method of surviving a day forcibly spent indoors, a little technique I like to call the Wear Out Your Welcome Survival System.  Basically, one takes oneself and one's children somewhere, and one stays there for as long as one possibly can until one's offspring begin actually physically bouncing off the walls and every adult in the immediate vicinity starts shooting sidelong looks at one; then one hies off somewhere else with said offspring and repeats the process until it's wine o'clock and/or PBS Kids comes on again. 

After the girls had run around screaming and played dress-ups and eaten lunch and watched Little Mermaid II, my mother politely signaled that she'd like a few minutes of peace and quiet, so we decamped for the children's room of the local library. This library keeps parenting mags in the children's section, which is how I stumbled across a recent edition of Mothering magazine. I love Mothering magazine!  It's a portal into a whole parallel universe for me, a universe where mothers actually make wholesome cookies out of ingredients like steel-cut oats and unsulphured molasses and don't consider the hour when PBS shows Arthur and Martha Speaks to be the happiest hour of her day.  I'm fascinated by the Mothering crowd for the same reason I'm fascinated by evangelical Christians:  As someone who has the unfortunate tendency to see all sides of every issue, I'm entranced by people who have a coherent and cohesive world view on anything, whether it be vaccinations (bad!) or individual communion with Jesus (good!). 

This particular issue of Mothering was a real gem, because the whole issue was dedicated to pregnancy and birthing stories - and this is the kind of magazine, after all, that refers to childbirth as 'birthing'.  The stories had some similar leitmotifs, in which our heroine (or hero, there were some dads in the mix) is unsure of herself or apprehensive about the pending birthing experience in some way, then rallies to shake off the omnipresent influence of the medical-industrial complex on her and her unborn child so that the as-yet-unborn one's passage into this world is guided by solely by maternal instinct in a natural, holistic way, untrammeled by the invasive techniques of modern medicine.  Along the way there's a lot of references to tapping into pools of collective wisdom and letting one's body express the knowledge of generations of mothers, along with drinking herbal possets and celebrating the placenta. 

Really, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

One reason why I have never been able to take Mothering very seriously is that it wades hip-deep in the whole women-have-mystic-intuitive-ways-of-knowing arglebargle that is a whole lot of bunkum, at least as far as I'm concerned.  I know it's bunkum mostly because *I* don't seem to have an intuitive bone in my body.  When India was a wee blob rolling around on the carpet, I can't tell you how many times she would become uncharacteristically fussy and upset, sometimes for the better part of an hour, and I would be completely and totally stymied by this until Warren would ask me, "When was the last time you fed her?"  Um, too long ago?  "Has her diaper been changed?"  Not since the vernal equinox, why?  "Has she had a nap yet?" Gee, is that why she's rubbing her eyes???  What's more, this didn't just happen once or twice, it happened over and over again!  So, no, I do not subscribe to the theory that having a uterus makes me more sensitive to my fellow human beings or more in tune with nature or any of that.  I do love the reasoning behind that theory, which is usually some kind of incoherent statement of scientifically dubious provenance about how women are so intuitive because we have these cycles of life ebbing and flowing within us as the moon makes its passage around the earth, and those cycles keep us in touch with the natural rhythms around us and blah blah blah yada yada menses.  You can be guaranteed that somewhere in there someone's going to refer to menses.

After reading the third or fourth account of mystically magical and intuitively sensitive birthing experiences, I started to get a little impatient with these people.  One piece was all about a first-time mother and how she spent a lot of times outdoors (with nature!) so she could get in touch with her internal instinctive knowledge about birthing, because she was so unsure about the whole dealie-o.  How will I know when I go into labor? was one of her questions.  For the love of Buddha, woman, it's not like having a splinter removed; the gigantic cramps ripping through your midsection might be one small indicator!  How will I know what position is right for me to go through labor? was another one of her puzzlers, and again, may I point out the rather large amount of discomfort involved in labor?  The laboree generally couldn't give a sh!t what position she's in as long as it involves getting the little interloper OUT, and as rapidly as possible.  Good lord, I knew all that going into the delivery room for the first time, and my 'birthing' prep consisted of one Saturday afternoon childbirth education video, the labor and delivery chapter of What to Expect When You're Expecting and the ABC Afterschool Special My Mom's Having a Baby!  Maybe I would've had more questions if I'd spent more time meditating upon my body's instinctive wisdom handed down from collective generations of women's experiences with birthing, but my method worked just fine in my case.

The other element that started to piss me off was the obligatory denigration of modern medicine.  Every article, without fail, had a few sentences in the opening paragraph about how pregnancy is a life stage, not an illness, and how the couple involved didn't want to "turn over" their birthing experience to the invasive, hostile forces of OB/GYNS because the body is naturally equipped to handle childbirth and so on and so forth, insert stock phrase about wisdom and moon cycles here.  Yeah, women handled childbirth at home as part of the natural order of things for millennia. Now go take a walk through the gravesites of any old cemetery.  See how many headstones from the 1700's and 1800's mark the sites of women in their 20's, 30's and 40's, then count how many of them have a little headstone next to them marked "Baby". Better yet, let's transport one of our pregnant ancestresses forward in time and let her choose between a home birth in an inflatable tub, complete with essential oil massage, on one hand, and a fully equipped hospital-based birth center on the other.  I'm willing to bet cash moneys she'd run us over to get to the fetal monitor, thank you.  The fact is, we have the luxury of being able to choose home-based births BECAUSE modern medicine is so good at identifying those pregnancies that may have complications and preventing them or ensuring a good outcome, a "good outcome" being a live, healthy baby who probably will live to a hale and hearty adulthood THANKS TO VACCINES.  But that's another post. 

Oooh, here's another good one:  One of the stories was written by a father-to-be who decided, along with his wife, that the only people who should attend their child's birth were the people involved in its conception.  So, no attendants other than the two of them.  And he wondered why his father the doctor expressed some skepticism!  Anyhoo, this guy referred to their decision as an act of bravery several times in the story.  Why?  Because they were told by numerous people that this might not be such a hot idea.  If that's the standard, then, my kids are brave on a daily basis because I am constantly telling them that what they have in mind is not such a hot idea (as in, well, dear, you can pick up the cat and hold him upside-down, but I'm not sure he really enjoys that).   In my lexicon, bravery generally applies to something a little bigger than deciding to have a baby at home.  Standing up to bigotry is brave.  Running into a burning building to rescue a fuzzy li'l kitty-cat is brave.  Laboring at home in your birthing chair, sipping Mongolian yak-butter tea and chanting in Sanskrit to help you through the contractions doesn't qualify as an act of valor. 

Happily, even after perusing all these accounts of superior birthing practices penned by far more nurturing mothers than I am, I have no regrets about my more plebeian experiences (except for the extra week Celeste spent sitting on my bladder before she decided to come out - I regret that every time I do jumping jacks and pee my pants).  Granted, I eschewed painkillers during Celeste's birth only because I wasn't allowed any, and I wanted Warren to attend both births more out of a desire to make sure he was going to suffer along with me than out of concern about his status as father-to-be.  In the final analysis, I don't think India and Celeste are going to suffer any irreparable damage just because they didn't enter the world in our living room the way all those little Astrids and Nialls in Mothering magazine did - and I KNOW our living room furniture is better off for it, too!  Best of all, by embracing a far lower standard of mothering than Mothering promotes, I don't have to make so-called cookies out of bulghur wheat, quinoa and prunes and pretend I like them.  Hooray!

Surely They Jest EXPANDED

Me (to class of students):  My password for my bookmarking site is my first initial, last name.

Student: What's your first name?

Second student: It's Caroline!

First student:  Can I call you Caroline?

Me:  NO!

Second student: She's on Facebook!

First student:  Can I friend you???

Me:  ABSOLUTELY NOT!

First student: Why not?

Me:  When you turn 21, if you're still interested in knowing the boring things I'm up to or want to call me by my first name, you may do so.

First student: All right!

Me: But don't call me at midnight the day you turn 21; I'll be asleep.

First student (to friend):  I'm totally doing that!

******

We are playing a review game in class.  One particularly noodgy boy, let's call him Larry Moeandcurly, is in raging noodge mode - up, down, out of his seat, chucking paper balls at his friend when he thinks I'm not looking, and otherwise just about jumping out of his skin every second of every minute.

"Larry" (pointing to friend): He's annoying!

Me:  ARE YOU LOOKING IN A MIRROR?!  BECAUSE YOU'RE BEING ANNOYING!

Larry (sulkily):  I didn't do anything!

Me:  Remember, when you point the finger at someone else, you've got three fingers pointing back at you!

Other student (pointing):  Wow, she's right!

Larry:  Not if you go like this!  (contorts hand with pointed finger away from body)

******

At the end of the day, in a different class, two boys are horsing around.  When my back is turned, one boy punches the other one in the stomach.  I turn around to find "Joe Smith" doubled over.

Me:  WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!?!

Joe:  "Tucker" just punched me in the gut and he nearly hit me in the balls!

I held both boys after class, and then...

Me (to Tucker):  Tucker!  Don't do that again!

(to Joe):  Joe, that is the LAST time you are EVER going to refer to your family jewels in my class again!!  Unless you WANT me to call your mother and have you repeat to her what you just said to me???

Joe (sheepishly):  No, I don't.

Me:  I do not want to know anything about you and your genitalia, got it???  In fact, as far as I'm concerned, for future reference, you don't even HAVE anything like that!

Tucker (running out of the room):  Hahahahahahaha!  Mrs. S. said that Joe doesn't have any balls!

Me:  THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT!!!!!!!!!!!

I am really, really hoping they forget that particular exchange over the holiday break.  What are the chances???

All The World's a Stage (And For $2500, You Can Be On It, Too)

I ran into a teacher friend in the halls, a very accomplished singer and musician who is also one of the most levelheaded, fair-minded people I know.  "How's the musical going?" I inquired of "Kay"*.  I got a roll of the eye and a heave of a sigh for response.  "I got an email from a parent about our casting," she said. 

One of the many things that makes Kay such a gem is the fact that she is willing, nay, eager, to help stage the middle school musical.  Every. Year.  Do you have any idea what it's like to get twenty middle schoolers organized and focused for forty minutes every day?  Try to imagine it.  Now try to imagine FOUR TIMES THAT NUMBER of students for TWO HOURS AT A STRETCH, and you have musical practice.  Furthermore, the musical has a very low threshold of exclusivity.  Do you want to be in the musical?  Okay, you're in the musical!  Do you want to sing, despite a near-total dearth of musicality?  That's fine, you can be in the chorus!  Are you too shy to show your face on stage, but you're longing for the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd?  Come be a stage hand!  If the musical doesn't have enough parts for everyone, they'll make up a part for you, right down to the third lady's maid's sister's understudy. 

However, this being Upper Socioeconomic Middle School, located in the land of competitive parenting, there is always going to be an element that COMPLETELY LOSES ALL PERSPECTIVE around events like this.  Because while anyone can be in the musical, there are parts to be won (or lost) and bragging (or complaining) rights at stake.  so while parts for the third lady's maid's sister's understudy abound, there are always only a few true lead roles to go around, and that's where the heartache begins.

Kay told me that one particular student did not get a lead role this year.  This student considers herself to be quite the budding thespian (a perspective that has been actively encouraged, if not originally instilled, by her mother). She had won a lead role last year and thought herself a shoo-in for the lead.  When she did not get the lead, she approached Kay and asked why she didn't get it.  Kay repeated to her what she told all the kids, that she tries to fit the best student to the best part.  Then "Sarah" asked her if there were any lead roles left over.  The only role left was that of a larger, unattractive older woman, which Kay told Sarah was still open if she wanted to consider it.

Well, after that all hell broke loose, transmitted via e-communication.  Sarah's mother sent Kay a screed telling her (Kay) how TRAUMATIZED Sarah was by this and asking how DARE Kay tell her that she wasn't as good as some of the other students who tried out and how could she be so CRUEL and HEARTLESS as to suggest her daughter was UNATTRACTIVE by offering her that role and blah blah blah self esteem yada yada yada you shouldn't be around children blah. The mother then haughtily informed Kay that her little Sarah happened to be working with a talent agency that happened to think that this was a very talented young lady who would go on to have a brilliant career as an actress.  So there.

Here's what she failed to leave out:  This "talent agency" that is praising Sarah's acting to the skies?  Is a private "acting and modeling academy" to which this family has paid THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS over the past two years for "lessons".  And what has this institution managed to accomplish on Sarah's behalf?  Well, she's been an extra in a movie or two.  Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I understand, being an extra entails getting paid a pittance to stand around for hours basically being yourself and reacting to what's going around you, or not reacting, whatever the director decides.  So after months and months of academy fees, and weekly travel back and forth to the nearest larger metropolitan area, and paying for head shots and whatever, the kid's skills were honed to the point where she was eminently qualified to... stand around???

This is where I lose my sh!t.

Dear readers, you know I love my India and my Ceecee past the point of rationality.  They are as the stars in the sky and the earth under my feet.  I think they are clever and talented and beautiful and fascinating.  TO ME.  But if I ever, ever start blogging about how they are America's Next Top (fill-in-the-blank here) and I know this because the expensive private instructor I hired told me so, will you please please please reach through your computer screen and smack some sense into me???  Really, are there that many suckers born every minute that these parents don't GET IT?  OF COURSE the acting academy thinks Sarah is the next Dakota Fanning, because that's how they get the money out of you!  But don't think for a moment that it's limited to music and acting, oh no no no.  My friend the baseball coach has to deal with it too, when parents sidle up to him in tryouts and oh-so-casually mention that "Brandon's AAU coach says he's going to be their top pitcher this year."  Yeah?  So?  The only way AAU makes its money is by finding parents who are willing to pony up bucks for their kid to play on a team!  Sure, your kid may be the best pitcher on his AAU team, but that's no guarantee of anything!  That's why I changed dance schools for my kids, because the school we were attending pushes the competition team crap hard.  They make a big deal about "tryouts" to make it sound exclusive and elite, but in reality, they're just divided among a couple teams: Girls who can dance, girls who can sorta dance, and girls who suck but whose moms are willing to pay for the mandatory four different dance classes per session!   Really, is it that hard to figure out??

Let me offer you some perspective on this:  Everyone is better at some things than others.  Lots of kids have talent.  Some kids have a lot of talent.  But only one in a zillion has a truly remarkable talent.  What's more, that talent is usually accompanied by a big work ethic and extraordinary focus at a very young age (sometimes that work ethic and focus is the parents' and not the kid's, but that's another post).  If you're spending thousands of dollars on soccer camp and hotels and travel and all that crap and your kid gets cut from the freshman team, that should be a clear signal to put away the Division I season pass order forms and tell your kid to start hitting the books.  And don't bring up the old "Michael Jordan got cut from his freshman basketball team" story to me, because that's an outlier - as proven by the fact that it's the only counterargument you have.  Now, if your kid loves doing x, and you want to pay for it, great!  It's good for kids to have a positive activity to focus on.  But don't think that just because you spend a small fortune you can't afford on your kid that it automatically makes him or her more talented than anyone else out there.

I'll tell you another thing that drives me batsh!t crazy about this whole phenomenon:  It creates a very uneven playing field for the kids who might want to try something, but whose families can't afford to pay for the private leagues or who don't have their act together enough to get their kids into it.  The research is clear:  Lower-class kids spend their free time playing outside with each other in unstructured activities, and middle-class kids take lessons and join leagues.  By the time school sports start up in middle school, when it's more likely to be free, the less-advantaged kids are already four or five years behind the kids who have been in rec league for all of elementary school.  Add in AAU and town travel teams and Elite USA and all that other crap, and getting your kid into an activity becomes an arms race based on who has more money and time to spend trucking kids around.

Don't get me wrong, if India and Celeste happen to express an interest or a talent in something, I will do whatever I need to do (within reason and cost) to foster it. My approach right now is to try a range of things.  They take dance lessons once a week.  India sings in her youth voices choir at church.  They've taken swimming lessons and gymnastics lessons and soccer lessons in the past, but those are usually limited to a session or two.  Even though I think they are the greatest thing since sliced bread, I can see that they're no more than typically capable at any of those things.  Will that change?  I don't know.  I hope they find a passion in something - music, art, philately, model UN, studying the films of Ingmar Bergman - that enriches their lives beyond the daily round of school and home and chores and homework.  But I also hope I never mistake shelling out the green stuff on my part for actual talent on my kids' part.

* Names and identities changed to protect - well, everyone involved. The student portrayed is a composite and all conversations are summaries and not quotes, so don't get all James Frey on me, a'ight???

They're All Special, Part II: The Parent Trap

Working as a teacher means working with parents, regardless of whether or not the student has a Special Ed designation.  It's an odd sort of relationship a lot of the time, because most of the interaction between us happens through an intermediary, that being the student.  I have no idea, for instance, how a particular student portrays me to Mom and Dad - as boring?  mean?  lively?  informative?  There have been notable conflicts in the past, such as the mother who was convinced I had it out for her son because he earned a B in my class one quarter, but had an F on homework (mostly because he never did it).  The fact that this episode still stands out after more than a baker's dozen years of teaching is good, because it means that most of the time, most of my parent-teacher interactions have been reasonable.

Adding a Special Education diagnosis to the equation does complicate matters, however.  In addition to the usual responsibilities to implement the curriculum, deliver instruction and assess learning comes modifying all of the above and following the legal requirements set by the IEP.  And in some cases, on top of that comes managing the parents' expectations.  For example, some parents seem to believe that, because their child gets good grades, said child is automatically a candidate for top-level classes.  However, a quick read through the IEP reveals that the kid in question has to have a considerable amount of academic support to attain that grade, a fact that indicates this child isn't capable of handing the advanced reading and writing demands of honors history.  Now how do you frame that conversation: "your kid only gets good grades because she gets a boatload of extra help, not because she's smart"?  (Trust me, that approach doesn't sit too well!)  Other parents seem to think that the IEP is a magic bullet that will cure all ills.  This is a much trickier situation.  Quite frankly, it is not uncommon for an IEP to become a handy excuse for parents to ask us to cut kids extra breaks for reasons that are only tangentially related to the educational disability.  We go along because we're afraid that we'll be found out of compliance with the student's educational plan, which opens us up to a whole host of complications (lawsuits being among them).  What's more, most of those plans are written broadly enough that you can always find some way that we're not in compliance. It's the educational equivalent of mission creep - IEP creep, as it were.

Basically, a lot of the challenges presented by Special Ed students are the same ones presented by non-Special Ed students, and I can sum it up in one phrase:  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Whether we like to admit it or not, a kid's attitude toward school and education is by and large a reflection of the parents' attitude.  A couple of years ago, I had a freshman student on my attendance list who didn't show up to school.  He didn't show up the first week.  He didn't show up the second week.  He didn't show up until most of the way into the third week, by which time I had assumed he'd moved and not told the district.  He came to school for one day, was out for a couple, then came back a few days later.  Meanwhile, we scheduled an emergency meeting with the mom because - of course - the kid had an IEP and we needed to find out just what the hell was up.  As it turned out, she had been homeschooling him (insert air quotes with fingers here) because she "didn't like the way the middle school teachers talked to the kids."  How did she know about this?  From one phone call she'd made to the school.  And when did she homeschool him?  Before and after work, because she had a full-time job outside the home. [Here I am going to get on my soapbox:  I have known a few well-educated homeschooled kids in my time, and if you really think that's better for your child than the public school, have at it.  In most cases, I think you're wrong, but there are a few cases where it works.  However, if you are working 40 hours a week at something else, and your kid is supposed to be actively engaged in learning for at least 30 of those hours, then I want to know just when the hell you're sleeping and eating and doing all those other things, because something is getting shortchanged here.  Just sayin'.] So here this lady sat, bashing my colleagues and my district right and left, and meanwhile she can't get her kid up and out of bed four days out of five???  Please.  Your kid didn't need an IEP, he needed a live-in truant officer!

What I would like to be able to say to a lot of parents (in person, and not just in my blog) is that an IEP gives reasons for your child's performance, not excuses; and sometimes, the accommodations you want for your kid may not be in the kid's long-term best interest.  My cutting your kid a break on behavior expectations because of hyperactivity doesn't help that kid learn that actions have consequences.  Giving your kid extra time to complete homework without penalty because of organizational issues just means that kid has more time to forget, lose, and otherwise misplace assignments.  Today, we had a parent tell us that he wanted his student to come see each of us for an hour after school once a week to make up work and get extra help.  Um, really?  This student's problem is a complete and total lack of engagement - won't pick up a pencil, won't write down an answer, won't come see us for assigned extra help sessions as it is - and now we have to spend more time watching this kid not-do work, on our own time, no less?  Meanwhile, there was absolutely NO mention of any possible consequences following through at home, other than a statement that this kid is now expected to sit down and do the homework.  Hm, how about taking away the iPhone that's out every other moment of the day, perhaps?  Or blocking the computer games, or taking away TV?  No?  Because if the parent's not willing to present a united front with us, then any efforts we make amount to pissing in the wind, quite frankly, and I have no desire to stand in that breeze.

Here's my dirty little secret:  I've been in far too many meetings where everyone talks a good game about what's going to happen and how things are going to change, but then no one else shows up to play except the teacher.  I don't put a lot of mental or emotional energy into kids like that once I get wind of the fact that the parents are going to rationalize away their kid's poor performance.  Oh, sure, I'll follow the IEP and make the required modifications, but if the parent is just going to sabotage any efforts we make to actually help the student (please forgive the split infinitive there), then I'll focus on students who will benefit from my efforts.  For instance, the kid who didn't come to the first three weeks of school?  His mom pinky-promised that he'd be there every day from then on, and he'd catch up on his work and get back on track, and she was going to make sure of it, blah blah blah and yadda yadda.  The kid was absent for the rest of the week and hasn't come back to this day, as far as I know. So does that make his mom out of compliance with his IEP, and if so, do WE get to sue???

It's All In How You Look At It

A field trip, as seen through the eyes of an eighth-grader:

We're going on a field trip! A field trip! A field trip!  We're going on a field trip!  YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!  Omigod!  A field trip!  Dude, we're going on a field trip!  Do I need my backpack?  Can I bring my backpack?  Can I put my backpack in my locker?  Who's going to be on my bus?  Are you on my bus?  How about you?  Are you on my bus?  Let's get the back seat!  Dude, I want the back seat!  Omigod!  Lookit that kid!  HAHAHAHAHA!  Bang on the window!  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  What?  Dude, sit down, the bus driver's looking right at you!  Can I use your iPod?  Huh?  Can I?  Dude, can I use your iPod?  Gimme your iPod!  Because I can't find mine, that's why!  Omigod, look at that car!  He's, like, totally backwards off the road!  Let's point at him!  HEEEEEEEEEEEYYY!  What?  Hey!  Hey!  Siddown!  The chaperone's looking at us!  What?  No I didn't.  No I didn't.  HE had his hand out the window, not me!  God, you don't have to be all mad about it.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  Lookit that kid!  Take a picture of this! Take a picture of this!  Lookit this!  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  Hey, what do you have for lunch?  I'm hungry.  I'm eating my lunch now.  Take a picture of me eating my lunch!

OMIGOD THE FLEET CENTER!  Lookit the Fleet Center!  Look!  My dad totally said he's gonna take me to a game this year!  Hey!  Lookit that guy on the bike!  HEY.  HEY.  HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!  Dude, he totally waved to me!  What?  OMIGOD LOOKIT THAT CAR!  Dude, check out that car!  It's a Ferrari!  Wave at him!  Lookit!  We're here!  Check out that weird-lookin' guy!  Shuddup, I am not!  No, YOU shuddup!  

DUDE, LOOKIT ALL THE SQUIRRELS!!  THAT'S THE BIGGEST SQUIRREL I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE!!  CHECK OUT THE SQUIRRELS!! THAT SQUIRREL'S STANDING UP!!!  TAKE A PICTURE OF THIS!  TAKE A PICTURE OF ME AND THE SQUIRREL!  DUDE, I'M GONNA EMAIL THIS TO MY MOM!

Listen to a bunch of boring stuff about dead people

Is this over yet?  When is this going to be over?  Is it lunchtime?  Are we going to eat lunch with, like, everyone, or do I have to stay with my group? 

PIIIIIIGEOOOOOOOOONS!!!!

Omigod, I've never seen so many pigeons!  Check this out!  That pigeon totally flew over my head and missed me by thismuch! HAHAHAHAHA!

I'm gonna go buy some food.  Whaddya mean, I have to wait for the group??  Jeez, it's not like I'm gonna get lost or something - wait.  Where is everyone? 

Omigod, FOOOOOOOOD!  How much money do you have?  I only have ten dollars.  I want pizza.  Where's the pizza place?   No, I want a hot dog!  Do you want a hot dog?  Where are the hot dogs?  Omigod lookit THAT!  THAT'S what I want!  C'mon, let's go over here!  No, over here!  I want one of those!  Hey, get me a Monster energy drink.  Cuz you owe me, that's why!  Yeah you do.  Yeah you do.  I totally gave you four bucks the other day is why!  Lemme have a bite of that, then.  C'mon!  Argh!  You're such a - NICE PERSON.  THAT'S WHAT I WAS JUST ABOUT TO SAY, MRS. S!  HE'S A NIIIIICE PERSON WHO'S GONNA GIVE ME A BITE OF HIS LUNCH! Because I said -

CANDY!  OMIGOD LOOKIT THE CANDY PLACE!!  I'M TOTALLY GETTING GUMMI WORMS!  Dude, Pixy Stix!  Let's all get jumbo Pixy Stix for the ride back!!  And Fun Dip!  HAHAHAHAHA!!  Lookit us, Mrs. S.!  We're gonna eat all this on the ride home!  Lookit her face!  HAHAHAHAHAHA!  What?  Get me one of them too!  Hey, there's the bus!  Tell 'em I'll be right there!  Wait, I just need to get this one thing!  C'mon, it's almost my turn!  Just this one thing!  Awwwww!  You never let me get anything!  HEY.  THAT'S MY SEAT.  BECAUSE I SAT HERE ALL THE WAY DOWN, THAT'S WHY.  GET OUT OF MY SEAT.  You move!  No, YOU move!  Well, I ain't moving - what?  Yeah, good job making both of us move!  Yeah it IS your fault!  Is too!  Is too!  He wouldnta said anything if you hadn't been yelling!  Yeah, whatever.  No, YOU shut up!  What?  No, I don't want a lunch detention.  God, what's wrong with her today?  Hey, check it out!  That kid's totally fast asleep!  HAHAHAHAHA!  Hey! Hey! Let me use your camera!  I'm totally taking a picture of this kid!  Wait, take a picture of me eating this candy!  No, me!  Take a picture of me!  HAHAHAHAHA!  I can't wait to show everyone what we did today!!