R-E-S-P-E-C-T

This past week I have survived the first week of fourth grade, sixth grade, tenth grade and my own work at high school.  My kids did great and while the new middle schooler had a tough week, she left on Friday triumphant having finally conquered her locker.  Whew!  The boy loves going to his after-school care; so much so that he is not happy to see me when I get there to pick him up. This should make me feel good, but it does make me a little mad when I have sat in traffic for an hour trying to get to him.

I have gleaned a lot of knowledge this first week working among so many teenagers.  First, they are not as clean-smelling as I hoped kids of this age would be.  We have two rooms off of the library and when classes are held in there, it smells like PE class after everyone leaves.  I expect this from grade school kids who are totally clueless that the smell they smell is indeed themselves, but it surprised me at high school.  Second, when over 2000 kids attend a school, there is not enough room for them all to eat lunch in the cafeteria.  Even with two lunch periods, kids spill into the hallways, the grounds outside, seniors leave campus and hundreds of kids make their way into the library.  We ask that those who are going to eat to eat up front.  Half of the kids say yes ma’am, sit where we ask them to and smile pleasantly. I LOVE these kids.  The the other half is sneaking food in every time they think I am not looking.  I am always looking and it is a game of “how stupid is the library staff vs. fast-chewing teens” for the next 30 minutes.  Third, pep rallies are not as fun as I remember.  Our student population is large, so they have two pep rallies instead of just one.  There was a dance routine, a cheer routine, the football captains murmured something into a microphone, a school fight song and then everyone was ushered out.  Eh.  Fourth, having school spirit means you can wear jeans and sneakers on game days. I just can’t buy enough spirit wear!

However, the most important thing I have learned this week comes from the teachers.  I was hired with about twenty new teachers this year and when they were introduced during the first staff meeting, it was a like a Who’s Who of American Teachers.  They are credentialed in a million things, they have been working in urban locations with struggling schools, they just flew in from overseas, or they are going to be teaching multiple subjects and coaching.  This is not just the new teachers though, it is all the teachers.  Very rarely does a teacher just teach one subject.  They are teaching Math and heading up the Robotics Department, or they teach English and leading the after school tutoring program or they are splitting time between multiple schools.  Impressed yet? I was, but it goes on.  They are there early or late or skip their lunch period to tutor or even just be available for kids who need help.  They are encouraging kids who don’t get encouragement at home and they are cutting through collegiate tape for those who do.  They are taking kids who won’t go on to college and helping them to identify careers and they are taking special needs kids and teaching them life skills.  It is all very humbling.

This week has opened my eyes to what being a teacher really means.  They are listening when other adults are not and they are intervening when kids need help.  People always comment on how teachers have it easy with their holidays and their summer vacations.  I think they need those in order to save their sanity and come back to do it again next year.  And for those of you who think that your taxes pay teacher’s salaries, that is inane.  Your taxes pay your taxes and teachers pay taxes too, so they could say that they are actually funding their own salaries as well.  And yes, teachers do make good money their first year out of college, but what about ten years later when they are raising a family and have had maybe a 1% increase those past ten years?  Not so much right?

My kids have had decent teachers, good teachers and teachers I would walk across coals for if they asked me because they made such a difference in my kids’ lives.  They have also had teachers who were going through a divorce and distracted, teachers who maybe could have retired a few years ago and teachers who got into teaching without realizing it wasn’t for them.  Poor Bill had more bad teachers than good teachers.  I have railed against certain teachers and how I think they have failed my children without stopping to just appreciate that these teachers were there during the day when I wasn’t.  Perhaps their teaching style did not suit my child, but they took care of them, made sure they were where they were supposed to be and expected things of them.  I didn’t care to remember that they were doing all of this while caring for more kids than their room truly holds and state issued testing breathing down their necks.   

I would like to hope that every teacher my kids get will be a great one, but I know that they won’t all be.  However, even if they are not, I will try to keep in mind all that they do in a day and respect them for that alone and teach my kids to do the same.  

Workin' 9 to 5

Sometimes I remember commercials from my youth that no one else does.  (For example, no one else remembers the "Barcelona.  It's in Spain" commercials that ran before the Summer Olympics in Barcelona to let us ignorant Americans know where Barcelona was.  They were so lame and yet so good in conveying where in the world Barcelona is that whenever I hear Barcelona, I immediately think "It's in Spain.")  However, I feel confident that everyone will remember the Enjoli commercial I am about to reference, but if not, click here.

Released in the early 80's, this commercial was about celebrating the new generation of working women.  Women who fought hard for their jobs and not only earned money, but then came home, made dinner and wowed their husbands with their feminine wiles.  As a kid, I remember being amazed the woman was cooking bacon(!) for dinner!  Decadence.  As an adult, I am amazed she didn't immediately take her bra off and change into comfy pants when she walked through the door. What the hell was she thinking?  On my drive home, I am picturing that sweet, sweet moment I get to take my shoes off for the day.  The Enjoli woman is cooking in heels.  Hmm, my jaded adult take is that perhaps this ad was less about female empowerment and more about what a male director wanted in his dream woman....

Anyway, aside from the constricting foot wear, adjusting to full time work is going well.  I am still getting my kettlebell in, laundry is getting done and the kids are still growing.  It is a new normal and it is a busy one!  Bill used to laugh when I said I did laundry all day, and I would get mad because I really did do laundry all day.  However, now laundry can now get done in an evening.  Apparently my working has thrown the earth's rotation out of whack and more can get done in less time.  Crazy, right?!  The kids are adjusting too and are also feeling the time shift.  However in their case, eight hours is not even enough time to get their teeth brushed before I get home.

I really like my job. I like being busy.  I like the people I work with. I have a desk!  My own desk!   Two of the things I was worried about the night before I started was if there would be a refrigerator and how close a staff bathroom might be.  There is a refrigerator in the break room twenty feet from my desk so there is no need to worry about what I can bring for lunch and, happy day, a staff bathroom right outside the hall. Jackpot!!!  I can't remember everyone's name but that is okay because they can't remember mine and we all wear badges anyway.

I will own up to feeling perhaps a tiny bit tired.  Or maybe even bone crushingly exhausted.  Yes, that was me asleep on the couch about 8:15 last Friday.  I know that damn Enjoli woman probably stayed up til midnight knitting a blanket or saving whales somewhere, but I think I am more Rosie the Riveter than Enjoli woman anyway. 

Yes, yes we can.

(Personally, I would love to wear a jump suit and bandanna to work and you know Rosie was sporting some sensible shoes to go with both. And yes, of course, I would up the sleeves of said jumpsuit and show my muscles, just like Rosie)   It can be overwhelming how much there is to get done in a day.  I am trying to take it all in stride and give myself time to adjust, give us all time to adjust as my wise husband suggests.  Until we do, I am going to think more like Rosie.  She rolled up her sleeves and entered the workforce and so am I.  We are strong, we are purposeful and we are determined.  Rosie and I?  We can do laundry in the evening or we can encourage kids to use the same towel once more until we do.  We can clean the house when we get a chance or ignore the dog hair until we do.  Even better, smile as our sweet husband takes up the vacuum.  We can make a great meal on the fly or we can make a sandwich and call it dinner - either one will fill us up.  We can love our kids whether we are spending all day with them or not enough time together in the evening.  It is a busy new normal and one I see that will go on for a long time, but Rosie and I?  We can do it!

FAITH or faith?

Lately, I find I am very adrift when it come to faith.  Not FAITH (God, the Trinity, do unto others...), but faith: which faith, which church, which way to tell our kids is it.  Bill and I both grew up Catholic but stopped practicing as Catholics in our adulthood.  We have had cause to go to Catholic mass twice in the past few months and while he and I found the sameness of it comforting, our children looked like they were being skewered with hot pokers the entire time.  I guess you can't raise kids in a church with contemporary music and programs designed specifically for them and then expect them to sit, stand, kneel for an hour and feel like God is there for them too.  My stepdaughter likened it to secret club where everyone knew how to reply or when to kneel or what to say except her. 

We have gone to a huge, non-denominational church for years and enjoyed parts of it very much, but never really found our place in there.  We tried joining things, volunteering in different areas and then committing to small groups where you get to know a few families and get together with them.  This is an attempt to make a church of thousands homey.  However, every time we joined a group, after a few months the leaders would move.  Really, we were the Kevorkian of small groups.  It gets to where you feel like you just can't invest in the awkwardness of forcing a friendship or sense of familiarity with people anymore when you are just waiting for them to move on you. 

We have been shopping around for a new church for the last year.  We will try a church or two and either the kids will like it and we won't or we will like it and the kids won't.  There are many more weeks that we don't even try.  It is a very first world problem to have so many churches at our disposal to choose from, I know.  We live in a university town in the Bible belt.  People are atheists, agnostics, evangelists and zealots.  I know people who do not go to church but spend more time on the weekend serving and building their community than I have ever thought to do.  I know people who carry God in their heart everywhere they go and in everything they do and wonder how they do it so easily.  But what are we?  We are not any of those things.  I think we are just parents trying to raise good kids and keep God in the picture while we do it.  But I wonder if we are failing them because they are not growing up in a church reaching milestones and then the next milestone and then becoming an adult in their church? 

My grandmother was one of the most religious people I have ever met.  The woman raised 12 children in a house with one bathroom. She went to Mass every day.  My mother tells of having to go to church on Christmas morning before they could open presents.  I remember being a foul mouthed teen and grumbling that I had to go to church on a weeknight because it was a holy day of obligation.  Being a know-it-all 15 year old, I pointed out that if we were really celebrating the conception of Jesus, shouldn't we go in March and not early December?  She was furious.  Having never seen her more than annoyed before, I took note and even listened to what she had to say.  She said sometimes you just have to have FAITH.  You have to stop being so smart and to just believe.  She may have also been hinting at being more obedient and perhaps docile, but I had stopped listening by then. 

We had an incredibly intelligent and long conversation around the dinner table last night with all of our kids about God, about religion, about why we have not found a church.  I was amazed with the insight they provided about what they see, what they think we could do, what things we all could do and I thought that perhaps our indecision and hesitancy about faith isn't affecting them as negatively as I had thought.  It may have been good to tell them we don't have all the answers or they may just use against us in the future.  I did walk away from the table thinking that maybe we aren't failing as badly as I thought.  And I guess for the time being, we should just focus more on FAITH and less on which building to put that faith in.