Some Pig

Never Complain, Never Explain

Yeah, I get the irony in this title - as in, if I never did either of those things, I wouldn't have a blog, right?

Today one of my colleagues approached me.  He'd found out about the existence of my blog third- or fourth-hand and he wanted to make sure that I knew that other people in the district know it's out there.  The way he said it made me think that maybe some folks are, if not unhappy, maybe a little uncomfortable with what I'm doing.  Or maybe I'm just paranoid.  Or maybe I'm paranoid, but as the expression goes, just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.  I'm not so naive as to think that this couldn't be taken negatively if it's seen by the wrong people, or more likely, heard of second-hand by the wrong people who don't bother to check it out for themselves, but leap to their own conclusions based on what they've heard from other people.  

At first, I was really freaked out - who's he talking about?  what have they seen?  who else knows? - but the longer I thought about it, the more I decided, frig it.  I'm not going to sit here feeling like I've been caught doing something 'wrong' when I haven't done anything that it isn't perfectly well within my rights to do (an awkward construction, but you get the idea).  I know the First Amendment as well as any other citizen and probably better, and I know Oliver Wendell Holmes' famous injunction that "Your right to swing your fist ends where my mouth begins."  Yes, I have considered taking my blog private.  As many of you know, I did so, briefly and for my own reasons, earlier this fall.  When I was offline to the general population, I found that a great deal of what I find rewarding about blogging disappeared, too.  I'm an historian and a teacher by vocation, but I'm a writer by avocation.  I get a charge out of putting my writing in the public domain for others to find and read, more so than I do by sharing it only with a chosen few.  I can post a Facebook note for that.  I love finding just the right turn of phrase or shade of meaning to describe what I've experienced, and I love hearing that those words have resounded with someone I've never met before, someone who wouldn't necessarily feel obligated to take the time to read my work just because they know me.  I don't have the time or energy to pursue freelance writing jobs outside my paid work and my 'second shift' at home, so this blog gives me an outlet for that kind of creativity.  Would I give up this blog if it imperiled my career?  I can't lie - I'd have to.  We can't afford to have me sidelined because I like putting the snarky thoughts in my head down on e-paper.  But as I already mentioned, I'm not going to put myself on the sidelines for doing something lots of other people, including lots of other public school teachers, do every day.

So, for the record, and just in case any of those mysterious "they"s do happen to read this, I want to make myself perfectly clear on a number of points:

1) I blog about who I am, and part of who I am concerns what I do for a living.  That happens to be teaching in a public school. 

2) I have never knowingly revealed where I teach, other than my grade level and subject area.  I don't even directly refer to the state where I live, although it's easy enough to figure that out if you're paying attention.  I have mentioned colleagues by name, but only when they're close friends who know about and read my blog, and only when the situation is totally innocuous (usually because it's a joke at my expense).

3) Any students mentioned in my blog are given a pseudonym, and most of the time they are composite characters based on a number of similar incidences or similar students.  I regularly change identifying details, including gender and age, unless it's relevant to the story.  If it is relevant, it's innocuous (such as a student being taller than I am).  I don't even friend former students until they're 21 for that matter because I believe so strongly that students and teachers need to have some professional distance.

4) Yeah, I cuss in my blog, because this is where I put the stuff that's in my head, and yeah, I cuss in my head.  A LOT.  Get the f@#% over it.  Even though I cuss in my blog, I usually wuss out and use symbols or euphemisms for the actual word, because I'm a chickensh!t. 

5) When I do talk about actual students or school situations, usually one of two situations applies: a) they were students far enough in the past that they are not readily identifiable; or, b) the story involved has an element of universality to it.  Adolescent boys have been wiggly and hard to keep occupied since Adam and Eve had to go see the teacher to discuss why Cain couldn't stop punching Abel in the halls.  Every year, there's at least one female student who plays the I-have-a-crisis card non-stop.  And you find me the school district that doesn't foist its share of administrivia and ridiculous bureaucracy on its faculty at one point or another and I will send them my resume pronto.

6) I follow a number of other teachers' blogs, and I don't write about anything they don't write about.  Some of them are far more forthcoming than I am with names, places, and other specifics.

7) I have formulated these internal, personal guidelines after thinking a LOT about the moral and ethical implications of publishing a blog.  There is nothing here I can't live with, and nothing I won't stand behind.  I regularly read through my own archives to make sure I haven't posted anything in the heat of the moment that I wish I'd kept to myself, and I've only ever removed one post. 

So if this mysterious shadowy "they" actually does exist, I'd like to make "them" into a "you".  I invite you to make yourself known, and, whether you work with me or not, if you think I've overstepped my bounds, or if you're concerned about what I write.  I'd rather talk about whatever might trouble you face to face than spend the rest of my blogging career looking over my shoulder and wondering if you even exist.

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???

All I Wanna Do Is Have Some Fun

It's been a sucky week, what with the aforementioned testing and the subsequent schedule changes, and then just when that finally came to an end we had the Worst-Planned Field Trip Ever bring everything to a screeching halt again which resulted in mass panic and discombobulation on the part of the kids (not to mention the person running the aforementioned WPFTE, and should I mention that this person runs this exact same field trip four times a year???  And has done so for many, many years??  As in, DECADES?  As in, even if you are as slow and deliberate as a three-toed sloth, I would think that you would have had time to get it right by now!  But I digress.). So after six days in a row of screwed-up-ness, it's no surprise that the kids were nuttier than squirrel crap today, especially with the weekend just hours away, which was of course EXACTLY not the day to start a new activity they've never done before, but I can't afford to lose any more time since all the other 8th grade Social Studies teachers are already in the middle of the Revolutionary War and I just started the French and Indian War today, so damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.  Which turned out to be not such a bad thing except for my last period class of the day, which happens to be the one most heavily loaded with students who are not overly gifted in the brains or social maturity departments BUT who FAR exceed the local, state, and national standards for Being Talkative Pains in the Bum.  So after pointing out to one of these cherubs that there is NO WAY IN HELL the French and Indian War could POSSIBLY have led directly to World War II since they were separated by, oh, ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS, and may I point out that this was not the DUMBEST question I answered all day, well, a girl needs a little decompression time.  And you MIGHT then think to yourself, "Hey!  At least it's the weekend!" and you would be right in thinking that the weekend is the perfect opportunity to pause and regroup, refreshed by a hiatus from the cares and woes of the workaday world spent with one's nearest and dearest, BUT...

You knew there would be a BUT, didn't you?

... BUT, the in-laws are coming.  Which means that instead of spending the weekend catching up on all the craziness of the previous week and getting my ducks in a row for the craziness to come, I am going to spend the next 48 hours wishing the whole damned weekend was over and done already.  And then, since I know the ILs love us and come visit because they want to be part of our girls' lives, I will feel guilty and ashamed of myself for being such a heartless, ungracious, bratty little beast.  Then I will resent the fact that I feel that way, which will be followed by resenting the fact that, for reasons that are way too long and complicated to go into here, they are very, very difficult to have around and to keep entertained.  And since Warren and I are both stressed out and resentful, naturally the girls pick up on our tension, which, coupled with the excitement of having Grandparents! Around! All!! Weekend!!!, means that at some point during the weekend, one of the girls will have the kind of Difficult Moment that doesn't show her in the best possible light, which invariably ends with my father-in-law trying to step in and play the role of Stern but Doting Grandparent, by which I mean scolding her while trying to make it sound like he's not scolding her.  Which pisses me off.  And makes me resentful.  And starts the cycle all over again.

If I take to my bed with a bottle of gin, do you think anyone would notice?

They're All Special, Part I

I feel a multi-part blog post coming on about Special Education.  I've been affected quite a bit by Special Education throughout my career, both directly and indirectly, and it's been much on my mind lately.  If you have a hard-and-fast opinion about Special Ed in any form and what I say offends you, my apologies in advance.  I'm using this blog as a forum for thinking out loud and working through some of my own contradictory sentiments, so what I say here may not be the same opinion I held a year ago, or will hold tomorrow.  If you have a point to make that might change my mind in any way, by all means, please share it.

To start, I want to be crystal clear that I am not at all averse to working with students who have a Special Education designation.  Hey, I taught at a vocational high school for four years, and in most (if not all) of my classes, at least a third of the students had an Individualized Education Plan (IEP).  I had some classes with 50% of the kids on an IEP, which, in addition to putting us waaaaay out of compliance with ed law, raised some unique challenges.  How the hell does one provide "preferential seating in front row" for fourteen kids when there are only six rows of desks?  As much as I want to be an innovator in the classroom, the only situation I could devise was to stand in the middle of the room and teach in the round!  But back to my original point in this paragraph, I would not have been able to function and be an effective teacher there or anywhere else if I weren't willing to work with all kinds of kids who have all kinds of issues - some of them are listed on IEPs, and some aren't.

So here's an anecdote to start the series.  I've been reading a new blog written by a mom and stepdad about the challenges of being a blended family and raising a preteen, a young teen, and a baby (I'm not going to link to it here for a number of reasons I won't go into right now).  The mom wrote a couple of posts about the beginning of the school year and how well it was going for both boys, focusing more closely on the elder boy.  She wrote about the challenges of middle school, and adjusting to all the changes it demands.  She spoke about how difficult some aspects of school are for her son (who has an IEP for a few educational issues), and then she said something to the effect of, "I wonder if I should tell his teachers about his Asperger's?"

??!!!!!?!?!?!?!???!!!!!!!

So let me get this straight:  Your son has a condition that demands enough of your attention that one of the post categories on your side bar is dedicated solely to that condition, and you WONDER if your kid's teachers should know????  (For those of you who don't have experience with this, Asperger's Syndrome is a form of autism.  Kids with this condition often find it extremely hard to make friends, have a difficult time reading social cues, may be unintentionally oppositional or defiant, and often perseverate on a conversational topic or interest.  They are often very intelligent, but not interested in shades of meaning or subjects that require individual interpretation.  They often exhibit rigid thinking - x must always follow y; this cannot coexist with that.)  I've had students with Asperger's before, and they require a lot of understanding and assistance.  They also stand out pretty quickly.  I'm sure there are a couple of teachers sitting around a faculty lounge somewhere, discussing why this kid has near total recall of everything said in class but can't get it together enough to hand in a homework assignment.  They're looking at each other and saying, "Don't you think this kid has Asperger's?" and wondering how the hell they're going to bring this up to the parents.  In the meantime, this woman already knows and hasn't told them???  Would you choose not to tell the school nurse your kid has asthma and may need an inhaler during an attack?  Would you choose not to tell your mechanic you've been smelling gasoline every time you get in the car?  No?  Then why wouldn't you tell your kid's teachers he's got an educational issue?  How would you feel if you were assigned to a major project with a particular coworker, and that person chose to withhold THE ONE KEY PIECE OF INFORMATION you need to be successful until the project was basically completed?  Then why the hell wouldn't you share THIS information?

So, yeah.  I'm still shaking my head over that one, which is why I chose to lead off with it.  There's a lot about Special Education and how we handle it that leaves me shaking my head.  It's a big, complicated issue with a lot of big, complicated ethical questions involved, questions to which there may not be one clear-cut answer. 

Eternal Verities, 8th Grade Edition

Right after I finish telling everyone, "put your name on your paper, that way I can get it back to you if you lose it," I will find three papers that fell on the floor - none with names on them.

The day you are counting on every minute of class time, there will be an unannounced fire drill.

The kid coded for having "anger management issues" and who might need to be restrained is always the strapping six-footer, never the kid who's sixty-five pounds soaking wet and barely tall enough to ride alone at the carnival.

There's always one kid who wants to call you out on the arcana of your subject area and argue with you at length about how wrong you are.  This kid is never popular with peers.

The girl wearing the teeniest-tiniest pair of shorts ever manufactured on the planet will be wearing them with big, thick Ugg boots.  Because consistency is the last thing on their minds.

The disorganized kid who needs help remembering to wear underwear on the inside is always the kid to whom the crazy stuff happens that results in much, much greater disorganization.  The dog really DID eat the homework, for example.

The girl who acts all giddy and giggly and helpless always has a flock of boys swarming around her like white on rice.

They are never the boys you want dating your daughter. Or son, for that matter.

The boys you DO want dating your daughter (or son, for that matter) are the polite, clean, well-spoken, responsible, and kind ones.

They are never the ones the giggly/giddy girls are targeting.

I can't speak for the boys, but I bet the principle is the same.

Speaking of boys, the ones who use "homo," "queer" and "fag" as epithets most often are also the ones who are most touchy-nudgy with each other.

The day you are totally fired up about your lesson, a teachable moment will come up about something else and you will always forget to go back to your original idea.  Until that night.  In bed.  When you will sit bolt upright and think, "Dang!  I forgot to go back to ______!"

The week you have nothing much going on, you will have no correcting to do and no school deadlines to meet.  The week that the furnace dies, the car needs to be inspected, the baby has croup and your husband can't take the day off is the same week that progress reports or grades close and you have three major assignments that have to be corrected before you can be caught up.

Speaking of which, I have that pile of correcting juuust waiting for me, even as I write this - which brings me to one last eternal verity:

You will never feel like doing the correcting you have to do, even when you sit down with the express intention of doing it.

Letter From A Broad, Celebrity Endorsement Edition

Dear Ed Hardy/Christian Audigier/whoever,

For starters, could you please decide what name these garments are meant to evoke, because I am totally confused.  One would think that this Ed Hardy fellow is the person responsible for this, um, fashion statement, but then right under the name "Ed Hardy" is the very prominent subheading BY CHRISTIAN AUDIGIER.  What is that supposed to mean?  Is Ed Hardy Christian Audigier's alter ego?   Is he an evil twin?  Have Ed Hardy and Christian Audigier ever been seen in the same place at the same time?  Why the hell is this clothing line named after the apparently fictitious Ed Hardy if you're just going to splatter BY CHRISTIAN AUDIGIER all over it?  Why not just call it CHRISTIAN AUDIGIER and spare yourself the hassle?  Also, isn't it a little outre to display the designer's name so prominently under the label name?  After all, when Karl Lagerfeld designs a Chanel suit (is he still designing Chanel?  I seem to be five or six years behind on my Vogue reading), he doesn't put BY KARL LAGERFELD under the famous double-C logo. Furthermore,  could I please clue you in on the poor choice you made for "celebreality" spokesperson?  I know there's a recession, but geez - Jon Gosselin?  Really?  What, Michael Vick was too pricey?  There wasn't a Backstreet Boy or two willing to give you a cut-rate endorsement?  Finally, could you please share with me whatever kind of mind control you're currently exercising over the general populace to make them wear your ugly-ass clothing?  I would like to share it with the crazypants folks who are convinced that public-option health care is akin to throwing out the Constitution in favor of gulags and Five-Year Plans.  I'm not saying you have to be clinically insane to love Ed's-slash-Christian's unique aesthetic (i.e., biker tattoos meet seventies van art tinged with just a splash of eighties fluorescence), but I'm sure it helps.

Sincerely,

Puzzled

Dear Jon Gosselin,

Wow, what douchebag you turned out to be!

(As you can see, I don't believe in pulling my punches.)

While I'm not a J&K+8 fan, I had seen enough of your ex to have a whole lotta sympathy for you, and from the sounds of it, a lot of other people felt the same way.  And you've managed to burn through those stores of goodwill in about three-point-two tabloid stories, dude.  When you were the whipped husband shambling along in the wake of the SS Kate, I wondered what you'd be like if you weren't being chastised, ordered around, condescended to, or belittled continuously.

Obviously the answer is, "a douchebag".

Look, I understand you're making up for your lost youth.  You were surrounded six-deep in diapers and TV cameras at an age when I was hanging out with my friends, running up credit card debt, going out on worknights, and dating highly unsuitable people (Or more accurately, pining after highly unsuitable people and wondering why they didn't want to date me.  It's best all around that I got married later in life.).  But the fact remains that you are THIRTY-two, and not TWENTY-two, so a good deal of the sh!t you can get away with, or at least excuse away on the basis of callow youth, you can't do when you pass the three-zero Rubicon.  I mean, just look at the sight of you:

Aside from the fact that the picture on the upper left makes you look like you're rocking the petal-pink lipstick (not your best color, BTW), you've got the cute-suburban-dad thing going on.  The picture on the right, on the other hand, makes you look like a superannuated frat boy after spring break.  Dude, if your face gets any puffier, you're going to have to punch it down like bread dough.  And we need to have a long, serious talk about your Ed Hardy BY CHRISTIAN AUDIGIER addiction.  There are several things I never want to see on or near ANYONE'S hiney, and embroidered lion's heads definitely make the list.  Seriously, the only place we should EVER see those jeans is on a bonfire.  Or on the Glamour magazine "Don't" page, and you should have a black bar over your face.  One or the other.

We also need to talk about your taste in women, a sense of taste which seems to be firmly lodged right behind those lion's heads.  I know now that you're on the road to being unmarried you are free to pursue your lovin' any way you want it, but do you have to pick barely-legals who look like they're carrying an alphabet soup bowl full of STDs, even if they can't spell STD?  Holy penicillin, Batman, if any of those walking Petri dishes of skeeze you've been parading around came anywhere near MY kids, I'd be asking the pediatrician for an aerosol antibiotic.  No, scratch that.  If any of those skankbuckets came near my kids, I'd be lawyering up and throwing the book at you.  And I'd just love to see the judge's reaction when you come strolling into the courtroom in your $275 sweatshirts and your bottle-blonde hoochie mamas.  I'd be getting sole custody faster than you can say "Ed Hardy BY CHRISTIAN AUDIGIER" five times fast.

Now go put on some nice Dockers and pay some attention to your kids.

SP

P.S. Beware the specter of a rapid fall from fashion's graces wearing that trendy sh!t too.  Remember Ashton Kutcher and the trucker cap phenomenon?  I rest my case.

It Will FEEL Like Eternity, Anyway

For those of you who keep track of such things, here's a news flash:  I am officially appalled at People magazine.

Given that my usual reading pattern consists of perusing old copies while I'm on the exercise bike at the gym, my defection is not going to change their circulation figures much.  But on a moral and philosophical level, I feel obligated to voice my displeasure in this public forum.  My ire was provoked after coming across this article last week.  It's a fairly middle-of-the-road article about a semi-sorta-famous Melissa I always have a hard time placing out of context (Gilbert?  Naah, that was Little House on the Prairie eons ago.  Rivers?  Nope, this Melissa doesn't have a freakishly large head.  Oh yeah, that Sabrina girl!).  Anyhoo, MJH went and got fat thanks to having two kids, then went on a diet and got a People magazine cover (clearly she is far lower down on the celebrity scale than Kirstie Alley, who got a cover story for just announcing she's going on a diet, but reality is cruel sometimes).  It was a very typical People former-fat-person story, blah blah overweight blah blah low self-esteem, yada yada private trainer personal nutritionist blabitty blah, so I was only half-reading it until I looked at the sidebar that describes the miraculous diet.  Here is what this woman eats in an average day:

• A protein shake for breakfast (with flax seeds!)
• A turkey wrap for lunch
• Salmon or halibut for dinner

Letter From A Broad, TMI Edition

Dear Elizabeth Edwards and Kirstie Alley,

I spent some quality time with you ladies and People magazine while on the stationary bike the other day (don't worry, I don't actually pay to read that high-toned trash - either I read old ones at the gym or I skim it in the checkout line at the grocery store, like everyone else).

I have to say, it was hard pedaling while my stomach was turning.

Okay, I like a good train wreck as much as anyone else, so it's hypocritical of me to say this, but here it is:  STOP.  Please.  Just.  Stop.  Please stop splattering your business all over the media so everyone can pick over the remains.  When Clinton told us he felt our pain, that was meant to be a figure of speech, not a life philosophy.  I was wincing internally for you ladies as I was reading, and that's not like me. 

Kirstie, I'll start with you.  I know why you gained all the weight you lost on Jenny Craig plus a bunch more; it's because you lost weight on Jenny Craig.  Those programs bank on built-in obsolescence so they can get repeat customers!  We all know that!  You know what would be a REAL story?  "Woman loses weight on strict Jenny Craig regime; keeps weight off indefinitely." THAT would be noteworthy!  And, honey, you're fifty-eight years old now.  There comes a point in one's life when one needs to embrace what one is, not twist into pretzels trying to become what one is not.  That's an awkwardly-worded way of saying, it's time to give up the idea of getting to the "bikini-ready 140 lbs." you've stated is your goal.  I'm not saying it's time to give up and invest your clothing allowance in muu-muus and elastic-waist pants, but you're no spring chicken.  Anyone who has ever lounged on a seaside beach in July can tell you, there is nothing worse than people of any gender, orientation, social status, or size trying to pull off a 'look' that is not suitable to their age.  Here I am thinking of the woman of, um, a certain age whom I saw last summer on the beach.  She was tanned to the texture of lizard hide, which I could tell because she was in a bikini - the better to show off her navel ring, no doubt, but it had the side benefit of showing all and sundry that her ample belly flesh had the color and appearance of old boot leather.  Add to that the unnaturally jet-black hair, the pink frosted lipstick, the nails, the high-heeled sandals ... well, I think we all get the point. There's an inflection point we all reach where the harder we try to look young, the worse we actually look as a result.  You, my friend, have met that moment.

Listen, Kirstie, if it makes you feel better, then by all means, you go with the weight loss.  Hire the trainer.  Measure the portions.  Feel the burn.  Just please stop feeling obliged to share the highs and lows of the numbers of your scale and the outcome of your efforts with us.  I don't want to know that you feel like a failure and are totally inhibited by your weight.  You've been on this planet for the better part of threescore years and you're still defining yourself by what size you are??  Damn, you shoulda let that go twenty years ago!

Now it's your turn, Elizabeth.  I don't blame you for wanting to haul your husband's boyish-looking ashes over.  What he did, apparently a lot more than the once he said he did, was slimy and caddish and wrong.  Personally, I wouldn't have blamed you if you'd made Rocky Mountain oysters out of his nuts and served them to him for dinner.  Not to mention what kind of woman makes a pass at a married man, especially such a famously married man?  What politician in this day and age is dumb enough, or arrogant enough, to think he can get away with it??

However.

What's happened now that you're discussing your book, and that affair, so publicly is that you are letting your whole life come down to this episode in your history. Is that what you want to be remembered for?  Seems to me John did a very good job on his own of reducing his political career to a punch line a la Gary Hart and the Monkey Business.  I know you're billing this as part of a larger picture of being resilient and coping with loss, and if it brings you some measure of peace and resolution, then that's all to the good.  The unfortunate side effect of this public catharsis is that it becomes bigger than the life you've led before this point.  All that you've accomplished, all that you've done and been and lived through, becomes a footnote to the story of you, Mr. Blowdry, Rielle whatserface and her cheesy line. [Side note to Rielle:  Have you ever heard the old phonics adage that when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking?  Yeah.  That's why I thought your name was pronounced Ree-ell when I saw it in print.  If you're going to change your name to RILEY, why not spell it RILEY?  Better yet, spell it LISA the way your parents did when they, um, gave you a name.]  I've always admired you for reasons that had nothing to do with your man, standing by him or otherwise.  I'm sorry he turned out to be such a dog, but I'd like to remember your life for a lot more than that.

Sincerely,

Some Pig

Spring Fever

Please save me from the "nice" middle-class kids of this world.

When I started teaching at Suburban Middle School, I was excited to be working in a district known for its high-achieving students.  After spending my entire career to date in schools that were not particularly academically ambitious or competitive, I was looking forward to being part of a school system where students are expected to work hard and excel.  One of the many things I like about this district is that it has a true cross-section of the population, socioeconomically, but included in that is a large subpopulation of students from high-achieving families.  In some ways, we get the best of both words - a district where not everyone drives a Porsche, but the resources are ample and the expectations are high.

Well.

What I didn't realize was that this subpopulation of "good" kids from the "right" side of the tracks (note heavy sarcasm here) includes many legitimately high-achieving students, to be sure, but it ALSO includes a lot of students who are - how shall I put it?  - entitled, self-centered, egotistical, manipulative JERKS.  Because these kids come from reasonably affluent, successful families, a lot of them have absorbed the message that they are unique in their own special unique specialness, and therefore rules that apply to everyone else in the whole rest of the universe need not apply to them.  They have learned that all it takes is an angry parent phone call, one that invokes the words "lawyer," "school," and "court", and suddenly they need never fear the consequences of their actions.  They have learned that their parents equate their own (the parents') success in their careers with their student's success in school; thinking that goes along the lines of, "Well, I'm a successful (fill in the professional white-collar career here), therefore, my child is naturally going to be equally successful at eighth grade." I know; I can't figure out the logic of that one, either, but there it is.

So now spring has come, and with it, the opening of fight season.  (What, you didn't know this?  Spring may be the season of love, but it is also the season of fisticuffs.  I swear there must be some kind of spike in hormone levels after the hibernation season ends, because tensions run HIGH in the young-teen-boy set from now 'til it gets too hot to move.)  A whole cadre of boys on my team got caught up in a huge donnybrook recently - words were said, glances were exchanged, punches thrown. The parties responsible were apprehended and sent to the office and justice administered. Then, in the post-mortem afterward, one name came up over and over. 

Finley*.

Deja Vu All Over Again

I thought things were going to be different, but clearly, they're not.

One of the eternal frustrations of my job, one which threatens to make me bitter and cynical and burnt out, is the constant reinvention of the wheel forced upon us by various administrators, central office honchos, and legislators, none of whom are responsible for actually implementing their decisions and none of whom actually have to deliver content instruction, day in and day out, to real live living breathing students.  After a baker's dozen of years in this profession, I've learned to take every new initiative, reform, and mandate with a whole fucking mountain of salt, because you know what?  After we teachers do all the grunt work of rewriting and revising and revamping and reconfiguring and rewhatevering everything we do to meet the demands of the NEW! and IMPROVED! program we're now currently using as our guidebook, something comes along - a change of personnel, a new law, something - and then guess what?  We're not doing that anymore, oh no, that's not at all what we need, we need to change direction entirely and go do THIS now, and by the way, all that work you did?  All that time you took away from preparing classes and correcting papers and meeting with students and researching your lessons and basically DOING YOUR JOB???  Yeah, all that was basically a big,fat waste of time because everything you did is now going to be THROWN OUT as old news and now we're going to start all over again!!! 

Here's a prime example:  When I moved back to the State Formerly Known As Home lo these eight years ago, the school where I taught was up to its (figurative) eyeballs in rewriting its curriculum to align with new state standards in order to comply with new legislation that mandated standards-based learning.  [For those of you not blessed with a working vocabulary in educationese, what "standards-based learning" means is that students are assessed against an absolute standard, not against a norm.  So, for example, if the standard says that all eighth-grade students will be able to write an essay with a thesis statement, three paragraphs, and a conclusion, a student who is unable to do so has to work on that skill until s/he is able to produce it.]  Where this becomes tricky is when high school graduation is at stake.  The State FKAH wanted to make high school diplomas standards-based, meaning, if a student did not meet a state-level standard, that student would not get credit for that subject area. This may sound fairly straightforward and uncontroversial, but think about what happens when a kid misses ONE standard but can complete all the others.  Or if the kid has a special ed disability.  Or moves in from another state that doesn't have standards-based diplomas.  

All of the above issues and more were raised to the grand wallahs at the State House, but they insisted - insisted! - that standards-based learning was coming, there were deadlines and benchmarks that had to be met, schools not in compliance were going to be penalized, blah blah blah yada yada yada.  For my first two years at this school, we spent every professional development day, every faculty meeting, every department meeting, every spare moment scrambling around trying to get everything in place that the state required so that we wouldn't be out of compliance.  Well, I say "we," which means "everyone except my friend Sue" - she was too smart to fall for the trap.  The day of reckoning, when we would be held accountable to the state, loomed.  And then - guess what?  At the eleventh hour, fifty-ninth minute and 57th second, the state Leg, in its infinite wisdom, decided they were going to "suspend" the movement toward standards-based grading "indefinitely."  For which read, "we realized this law was too FUBAR to implement, and the first time we denied a kid a diploma based on standards we were going to get our asses sued off, so, oops!  Never mind!  We call do-overs!  Um, go back to doing whatever it was that you... were doing... um, before."  In the words of Sue, "I told you so!"

So I, like many stronger and wiser folks before me, decided to split my efforts in two.  The bulk of my effort went into TEACHING - you know, trying to get kids to understand something that they didn't understand before in a way that makes their lives richer and more meaningful.  Or is that just too Hallmark-channel-ridiculous for words?  Then, a small sliver of my time and energy was dedicated to paying lip service to the latest and greatest snake oil being peddled from on high.  A teeny-weeny section of my brain was reserved for stupid jokes, gossip about co-workers, the lyrics to the theme song of The Jeffersons and the answers to trivia game questions, all of which would turn out to be fodder for future blog posts, but that is a waaaay different story.  To make a long story short (oops! too late!), I went on this way happily for many years, glad to be in the classroom and willing to let the rest of the nonsense roll off my back.  But then, in my new job, we were told that we were going to have a new decision-making model.  And it would be ground up!  And teacher-centered!  And focused on being honest about what was going on in the classroom! And you know what I did?

I fell for it.  I believed them!  Even as I type this, I can't believe I was that damn dumb!  I actually thought to myself, gee, this might actually work.  I actually let myself get invested in our curriculum work.  And you know what?  We were doing good stuff!  My fellow social studies teachers and I were setting common goals, planning assessments together, coming up with a coherent, cohesive curriculum that I BELIEVED IN and FELT I COULD TEACH.  We spent hours and HOURS on this stuff and I was actually willing and able to do MORE of this extra work because for once I felt like we were actually accomplishing something USEFUL AND CONCRETE. 

I'm sure you know where this is going.

Today I was told that all the work we have done over the past three-quarters of a calendar year is, um, well, useless.  Because our NEW curriculum coordinator doesn't agree with what the OLD curriculum coordinator did, we are basically THROWING OUT ALL THE WORK WE DID ALL YEAR and starting over.  Why?  Well, who knows, maybe she needs something to do to justify her salary that is probably TWICE WHAT I MAKE.  Oh, and by the way?  We have three, forty-five minute meetings left this school year for curriculum writing, and we have to rewrite our ENTIRE curriculum according to the NEW template.  By the end of JUNE.  Oh, and this decision?  Came from the top down.  So bye-bye, bottom-up planning; sayonara, teacher-led decision-making. That was a nice six months we had together!  Next?

You wanna know what really fries my cheese? (You must, if you've hung around this long.)  What gets me is that for ONCE, I was actually BEING TRUTHFUL ABOUT WHAT I DO.  For ONCE, I was being HONEST about what goes on in my classroom and not just going through the motions to make the bureaucracy happy.  For ONCE, I was PROUD of what we were accomplishing as a grade-level subject area.  For ONCE, I felt that I didn't have to close my door and play make-believe in order to do what I feel is ethically right by the kids.  Because you know who my customer is?  It's the KIDS.  You know what my job is?  My job is to deliver CONTENT to my STUDENTS in a way that is challenging and engaging and thought-provoking and skill-enhancing, and to do so in a way that makes them BETTER and MORE WELL-ADJUSTED citizens of the world.  And when STUPID SHIT LIKE THIS gets in the way of me DOING MY JOB I get ANGRY.  

So parents, do you want some free advice?  (It's worth every penny, I promise.)  If you want to know if your local school is any good, ignore the principal and the assistant principal and the central office hacks and the PTO moms and the reports in the local paper and go talk to the teachers directly.  Don't listen to the official arglebargle about curriculum and standards and lifelong learning and all that crap.  Why?  Because if my experience is any indication, and I've been in four districts in my career, what the teachers are DOING IN THE CLASSROOM and what the official party line is are often two very different things.  So go talk to the teachers.  If they seem smart and on the ball and engaged and connected to kids, they probably are and you can trust them with your kid.  If they seem to be playing the jargon game or don't seem to know which end is up, they probably don't.  The rest of it?  Is just window dressing.  And, because I like my job and I like my district and I want to keep teaching here preferably until I retire or die, this post will be up for a limited time - but if I don't get this off my chest, that final moment's going to come sooner rather than later.