Curley's Wife

This is my second year teaching Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” and I am having a very different reaction to it than I did last year.  Last year, I thought it was great how the kids recognized the themes of having a dream and friendship.  This year, I am grossed out by the misogyny that runs through it.  Like really grossed out.  Maybe it is because I have just finished grading three out of four class sets of chapter questions and Curley’s wife has been referred to as a hoe, a tramp and a skank-ass bitch.  Ouch.  Doesn’t she tell us again and again in Chapter Four that she’s just lonely?  Just tired of sitting in that house?  Flirty and needy I can see, but skanky?

Just some good ole boys....

As I spend too much time thinking of this, I think of the fact that she doesn’t even have a name.  Students in my class kept asking me “Miss, what’s her name?” and I would reply that Steinbeck didn’t give her a name.  So they named her themselves: Lola and Cinnamon were in the running.  Why doesn’t she have a name?  Why are the only other women mentioned in the book prostitutes?  That Susy was a fun gal and kept a clean house we are told. Susy, who has no dialogue, is given a name and Curley’s wife is still just Curley’s wife. And yes, I am sure running a cat house and brokering women for their bodies would indeed make one a fun gal.  Aunt Clara shows up as a hallucination at the end, but when she does, she derides Lennie and tells him he’s not worth anything. 

Maybe it is all the stuff on the outside of the classroom that is piling up and forcing me to see this with new eyes.  All the celebrities and politicians being called out again and again for harassment, for abuse, for rape.  For being disgusting and abusive to women they had power over.  Maybe it is the #metoo that went around, because it was everyone and it was everywhere.  It was my friends, it was your friends, it was us.  Maybe this is why I see Curley’s wife with new eyes this year.  I see her as the young woman we have all been: trusting, naïve, and compromised. 

I did ask my classes to ponder what life was like for women if this book was reflective of society at the time.  They quickly answered that it wasn’t good, but they also quickly said that things are so much better now.  That we are all equal now.  And inwardly, I cringe because I know things they just haven’t experienced yet.  There is so much I want to say, so much I want to show them, so much I know that they don’t.  However, I am paid to teach English and not show them how the world is still so flawed.  But I also think that as a teacher, part of my job is to teach kids to be better humans.  We have had too many incidents at school the past few months for me to think that my job ends with vocabulary and essay writing.  So I let them lead the conversations they want to have and I will give them general things to talk about, but sometimes the weight of the things I don’t get to say gets really heavy.

One more week of this book and then we will tuck it away for another year.  George, Lennie and the gang will all be silent until next year’s juniors crack the spine.  However, I am not so sure I can close Curley’s wife up with them though, I think she has something she needs me to say.

It's a Math World

In a staff meeting the other day, we had a presenter who was there to encourage, shape and mold us but ended up spending a lot of time talking about math.  How students need to be encouraged to look at a problem and think, "I don't know how to do this" and then add "I don't know how to do this, yet."  That yet taking a kid who cries about math to one who does word problems for fun.  Y-E-T making it easy as 1-2-3.  I wondered then and I wonder now, do we really all need to like math?  Do we really all need to look at it and think yet and be math superstars?  

I look around my class, my class where I teach English, and I see Math worksheets out every day.  I tell them every day, my work first, then Math, but the Math is always there, in every class. And I think, because I am an equitable sort of thinker, that if they are doing Algebra worksheets in English that they should be reading books in Algebra.  They laugh when I say this but I am sort of serious and I wonder what is it that makes Math such a force in their lives and, subsequently, my life?  

Do we all need to be Math superstars?  Or Mathletes or whatever fun name they have now?  We all know that I have never been a math superstar and never will be.  We do not need to add yet to the end of my sentence, because I am a grown woman struggling to help my 8th grader with his Math homework; I know where I stand.  In my adult life, I have never had to solve for x in a job or at home and the only time I use fractions is when I bake. I am not saying we don't need Math, because of course we do, but do we need it to be so ramped up?  So super fast that kids are just meant to keep going, keep going, keep going to the next level?  Are we all going to be rocket scientists or doctors or engineers?  We are not.  Don't tsk tsk me; I am not saying that we can't be if we want to, I am saying we are not all going to be.  Because we are not.  And that is not lack of a growth mind-set; that is realism.  

So what is it with the Math?  Why are we pushing these kids to learn it all so fast and so furiously?  I know I am one thousand years old, but I swear they are learning things in 8th grade that I didn't touch until I was in college.  Are their brains even ready for that? I really don't think so.  I think that the boy's squishy frontal lobe is filled mainly with fart jokes, boobs and obscure facts about video games.  I have watched three kids in my house slump over with the weight of Math, work long hours at the kitchen table over Math, push other classwork aside to finish Math and labor in a Herculean fashion under all the Math.  Today, I watched the boy crumble under the weight of trying as hard as he could, but still failing at Math. And I am watching Math crush the things he was working so hard for and there is no yet to add in anywhere here for him to make it better.  No yet to swoop in and make it easy.  No yet to make the homework a snap and the classwork a breeze.  No yet to pass a quiz the first time. Maybe for the rest of the country math is this place to show tremendous growth, but in this house, math is just a four-letter word.

Preach Calvin, preach.

Warning: Objects On Map Are Farther Than They Appear

I found that after my first year of teaching English, I was really tired of words.  Not at a loss of words, that will never happen, but just completely tired of words.  Tired of reading them, tired of writing them and tired of thinking in them.  Then Bill took a job that has him mostly in Dallas and I was afraid of using my words or hearing people’s words when they asked how that was going, so I hid from words.  Hiding from words is burdensome and while I would like if my husband was home more than he is gone, we have come to the perfect balance of words by summing it up as “It’s hard AND we are making it work.”  And, not but.

I will offer the advice that should you ever find yourself afraid of or hiding from your words, there is nothing like a 4,562 mile road trip to get them started again. Days of sitting and watching the interstate fly by helped me find my words again.  Why a road trip in eight days that normal people would do over a month?  Summer is Bill’s busiest time, always, and we squeeze in what we can with changes to plans all the time.  We were supposed to fly, but then there was issues with the miles and the charges on the miles and why spend $700 before we even left the state?  I have to say that I have some pretty stalwart kids because when I told them we would be driving instead of flying, they paused just a minute and said “But we are still going, so okay.” 

We drove hard this trip.  We made it from Dallas to Buffalo in 21 hours, no stops other than food and to use the restrooms.  That was the beginning of the trip though, so it really didn’t seem bad.  We sang the Hamilton soundtrack throughout the entire state of Tennessee and I forgot to be worried about those asshole deer between Memphis and Nashville that always seem out to get us. We played the alphabet game and I got stuck with all the sucky letters.  I am still angry about Q.   We talked and laughed and we got there fast. And then I was home and I was hugging my parents and I was watching their disbelief as they saw how big the kids are.  A few days later we were doing the same thing with Bill’s family in the beauty that is Canada, and again, that drive just slipped away.

Roadtrips are not without their casualties: roadkill, flat tires, boredom.  We measure ours by breakdowns. For example, I was a complete bitch in Montreal.  I needed a bathroom, some dinner and a bathroom again.  Yes, nice cobblestone streets and lovely European flair but all I wanted was a place to pee.  I also wept copiously outside Grand Rapids, MI because I was so tired I was seeing things on the side of the road (Sasquatch, a man running down the center line of the highway and a series of doors set up on the side of the road) and I just wanted to stop and even though we saw a hotel sign we couldn’t find the damn hotel and I was going to scream if I didn’t get out of that car.  Sophie had hers in Indiana early on the second day, but hers came in a verbal attack on her brother that had me fearing for his safety.  Bill, stalwart Bill, had his in Texarkana where he could no longer make words or sounds or grunts in reply to “Doing okay?”.  Only the boy remained whole this trip.

Why do we do this to ourselves?  Why do we push and drive and teeter on the edge of renal failure and deep vein thrombosis and call it vacation?  Why pick a route that has us drive top to bottom of the longest, finger-like states (screw you MI and IL) and call it fun?  Family.  We drive and drive and get to the places where people love us and our kids the best.  We spend just enough time that no one gets mad at each other and we reminisce, we show our kids things that we did when we were young, we see people we miss furiously throughout the year, and for a little while, we feel whole.  And our kids are off of their phones and talking and laughing and learning how to fish.  We see beautiful things: eagles, mountains, places I am sure bears are waiting to attack me and well, beautiful, clean Canada. This time, because we cannot accurately read a map, we saw all five Great Lakes on this trip.  That is a lot of water to kids growing up in dry, dry Texas.  Hell that was a lot of water to me.

looks far, but we made it even farther through Sault Ste. Marie

My neighbor commented that our trip was more of an expedition than a vacation and he is right.  We could have flown and had a vacation, but we had an expedition instead.  We are explorers!  Pioneers!  Barreling our way through the country like escaped convicts!  We’ll show you the road not taken!  Most people come back from vacation feeling rested, but we come back feeling like we survived. I really want a decal for my car that says 4,562 in an oval like the marathon decals.  I like going into the end of summer thinking that Lewis and Clark had nothing on us.  I feel strong, I feel ready for the school year and best of all, I feel like I want to use my words.

Feel Like a Number

This week, I have been reminded how much I don’t like numbers.  I am not a numbers person.  I think it all started back in second grade when I just flat out didn’t understand subtraction and spent a good portion of the math time either crying or pretending I needed to use the bathroom.  As I got older, I learned to stay put during math, but I spent my time doodling or writing notes and folding them into complicated squares.  As an adult, I have not liked numbers because numbers typically mean money and budgets and stress.  Also, my children keep bringing home their own sets of numbers to work on, but somehow they are new numbers and there is no way I can help with that.  Well, maybe I could, but I just don’t do numbers.

I was given a number this week on a review which really took me aback and reminded me of the negative influence numbers have had in my life.  I did not agree with this number, I did not like this number and I was saddened, affronted and aggrieved by this number.  A stupid number gave me all of these words and feelings!  I went to bed sad and defeated by this number, but when I woke up in the morning, I was angry at this number.  This number is not me!  I am not this number!  I was able to talk to the person who gave me this number and tell him how this number made me feel.  I told him this number made me feel as though I failed, that this number personally hurt my feelings.  I told him I took umbrage with this number.  Umbrage, like I was Agatha Christie or the Queen of England, I took umbrage.  I did not get him to change his number, but using my words gave me back a sense of who I really am, what it is I am really doing here every day.  That can’t be measured in a number and my words helped remind me of that.  Stupid numbers.

Not the number I was given, but the disdain is relatable.

Yesterday though, I was shown that while numbers might not work for me, sometimes they make other people feel very special.  Yesterday was the boy’s first track meet and he has been working sort of hard towards it.  The boy has a lackadaisical approach to life so it is hard to say what working hard really looks like for him.  We all know that the boy has had a rough life with those crazy eyes and school is hard and he doesn’t do sports and while he is mostly good at trumpet, he’s not the trumpet rock star he’d like to be.  So I was nervous when he approached the blocks.  I was filled with trepidation as he knelt down and I entered into silent pleas with God that he just didn’t trip or fall or that he just ran hard and came in the middle of the pack.  I just wanted him to feel accomplished.  Then the gun fired and they took off and from the very start he was ahead.  He was not only ahead, he was pumping his arms and legs and SAILING ahead of the pack.  He was so far in front that when I tried to take a picture, all I got was the bottom of his foot as he flew past me.  He was all arms, all legs, all fluid motion and I was screaming and jumping and crying as he WON.  HE WON!!!!! 

I ran down to the fence, still yelling, still leaky-eye crying to see if I could get his attention.  He was in the middle of a pack of kids and when I yelled his name for the tenth time, he broke off and held up a blue ribbon in one hand and the number one with his other hand.  He was so damn happy and proud of himself and his number.  I was so damn happy and proud of him and his number.  His face was alit with joy like it used to be when he was little and I found myself so damn grateful for a number that could make him look like that again.  Me, grateful for a number.  A number that made my son feel for the first time in his life, like he could do anything.  That he was important.  That he was good at something.  That someone recognized what it is he can do.  That he was number one. That number, number one for my boy, is finally a number I can really get behind.

Why I March

I thought I would feel morose, despondent or disenfranchised today, but I don’t.  Donald Trump was sworn in as POTUS this morning and while I shudder, I am not sad.  I am not sad because I laughed until I almost cried in the lunchroom today.  I am not sad because my beautiful daughter left inspiring notes on my desk that I then shared with others.  I am definitely not sad because tomorrow, tomorrow I march.

Tomorrow, I march with my daughter, with my co-workers, with my friends and with women and men I have never seen before in my life.  However, if these kindred souls have tears in their eyes, I will know why.  I march because I can. I march, not because my candidate lost an election, but because the one who won must be reminded that the way he treats women is not okay.  I march in solidarity with others who have been made to feel less than a man, who have been talked down to because they are not a man, who have been discredited, discounted or discouraged simply because they are not a man.  I march because I have gone into a business meeting with a brain full of ideas that were not heard because someone was spending more time eyeing the length of my skirt or the fullness of my shirt.  I march because my daughter should never experience this.  I march for those who cannot, or will not, or are too scared to go out but who feel the same.  This, this is why I march.

I march because there are so many others who want to march this feeling out.    We have been beaten, we have been humbled; we have been singled out, called out and laughed out.  We are weary and we are worn, but we are not done.  We are here to be strong for those who need strength, to be wise for those who need wisdom and we are here to give to those who need.  And not because we are women, but because we are human.  Humans who bleed the same red, who cry the same salty tears and who join together to remember this.

and because she marched too.

I march because my daughter sits at the table singing John Lennon and coloring her signs for the march.  I march because her generation sees less of a divide and more equality than mine. I march because this is the time to do it.  This time, I will stand up and say “See me.  All of me.  See us.  Hear us.  All of us.”  I march to collect in my ears the pounding of thousands of feet who march not to change the world, but to acknowledge our part in it.  I march to feel the enthusiasm of like-minded people exercising their constitutional rights.  I march to capture a snapshot of history in my heart to harken me through dark times. I march, and by God, I hope that you march too.

We Hold These Truths

I seriously had the outline for my “HOLY SHIT THERE IS A WOMAN IN THE OVAL OFFICE!!” blog formed in my head.  I watched the posts from the secret Facebook group and I liked, I loved, I sniffled at the beauty this country holds.  I looked at the pictures of long lines waiting to bestow homage at the grave of Susan B. Anthony and I openly cried.  I never, not once, thought that I would wake up to this world today.

But I have indeed woken up in this world.  I sat in disbelief, drinking coffee in the dark and crying, “The World Turned Upside Down” playing in my head.  How is this possible?  How can this be?  What even is this?

I dressed for work like I was dressing for a funeral.  I made lunches and put extra sweets in them because we need them today.  And when my daughter came down and asked who won, I broke her heart.  She burst into immediate, angry tears and asked “What the fuck?” with the same anger and disillusionment I had only recently tamped down in myself.  WTF indeed.

The ride to school was dark due to the rain and due to our thoughts and our hearts.  I told her that there are checks and balances; we elected a President, not a dictator.  I told her to watch the election for the House in two years; watch what rhetoric and mishandling would bring.  I told her it is okay to be angry, to be sad, and to feel adrift.  And then I watched kids shuffle into my first period class and I knew a good majority of them felt the same way she did.  How do you teach to this?  How do you say “yes, this sucks but let’s pick up where we left off on Chapter 3?”  What even is this?

So we journaled.  They wrote fast and furiously and the room was quiet.  And then some shared what they had written, and these kids are scared.  My black, brown, LGBTQ kids are scared and I get it.  I am forty-three years old and I am scared.  And they are angry.  When a Trump supporter shared his views, another kid walked up to him and I felt we were seconds away from a fist fight.  What I realized was that this tension is not just in my classroom; it is all of America.  America is scared and angry and volatile.  What do we do with that?

We react.  We walk between two arguing people and tell them they are both worth listening to.  We redirect and we listen.  We share.  We tell other kids the same things we tell our own kids.  We label what they are feeling as disillusionment, disenchantment and just plain old anger.  And we tell them that it is okay.  We ask the winners to be gracious, to feel good for themselves about the outcome but to remember their glee might be affronting to others.  We put our hand on someone else’s hand that is clenched and say “I know.  I understand.”  We recognize the good and bad that is America and we say we don’t always win.   Good doesn’t always win.  You don’t always get a goddamn medal or ribbon or certificate. Sometimes you get an empty hand and an angry heart. 

I asked some young men in my class if they thought the reason HRC didn’t win was simply because she was a woman and they all said yes.  I was so enamored with a woman being on the ballot I forgot there were people in this world, this country, this America, who think there shouldn’t be.  I saw the respect given to the women who fought our fights and won our wars and forgot those who stood, and stand, in their way.  I was reticent in thinking that all the work has been done, but I remember now how much more there is.

Thank you.

I am no shape to get that work done today or this week or maybe even this month.  I am going to mourn what was lost, what was not and what actually is.  And while I am doing that, I am going to remember that while we didn’t do it this time, we can do it.  And I am going to stand with her – whoever the her will be because I need to support women in this world and they need to support me.  I will listen to people who want to talk about how we make change, especially kids because they are going to be the ones with enough energy and enthusiasm to make these final changes.  Above all, I will remind myself, my kids, and my kids at school to be kind to one another, to respect one another and maybe that is where we can start making a real change.

Teaching is.....

In 1981, at the tender age of eight, I purchased my very first album.  I remember the cost being about $9, so I know I would have had to save allowances for weeks to accumulate that princely sum.  The album?  Smurfing Sing Song.  Ten songs sung in Smurf voices filled the need for a smurfing good time while anxiously awaiting Saturday morning and a new Smurf cartoon.  Along with such cult classics as “You’re a Pink Toothbrush, I’m a Blue Toothbrush”, this album contained a song that I have just now realized is acting as the anthem to my teaching career.  I am not sure the name of the song, but the lyrics went something like this “I’m spinning around, I am up and I am down.  I’m taking a ride on this merry-go-round”.  Come to think of it, the title may have been “Merry-Go-Round” or maybe "Smurfy-Go-Round".

Funny blue creatures or harbingers of insanity?

People have asked me “How’s teaching?” or “Is teaching all that you thought it would be?” and I find that I don’t really have a standard answer.  I find myself answering “Great!” or “All of it and so much more!” because I don’t think I should answer “Soul sucking”.  That sounds defeated and I am not defeated, but I am definitely confused.

Teaching is a teeter-totter of insanity on its very best day.  If my lesson plans rock and kids are engaged, then my grading is behind and it’s a weekend of bending over papers at the kitchen table.  If I am up on my personal and professional development, I am very behind on being open and available to kids who need more help.  If I am stellar at school, I feel like I am sliding downhill at home.  I love the kids, but they drive me crazy.  I laugh reading their journals and want to cry because they make me so frustrated.  I had a kid I taught for six weeks last year tell my daughter that I was his favorite teacher ever and the very same day, someone put a nasty, stepped-on, exploded cheese stick on my desk with a note that read “With Love.”  What is this life??

My days aren’t only going up and down, they are being spun in a circle way too fast.  Any time I feel like I am getting my footing, something will start spinning the whole thing around from the outside.  Solid week of lessons planned out?  Oh, here’s an email saying you are now signed up for mandatory, professional development so scrap those and make sub lessons instead.  Connected with a class that was resistant?  SPINNNNNNNNNN, observation taking place in your worst behaved class later on today.  Acronyms, important and unimportant things relegated to acronyms, are going to be the death of me.  They spin and spin and spin with no foreseeable end.  I no longer have my hands up in the air saying “Wheeeee!” because one is over my nauseated mouth and the other is against my pounding head.

Somedays I drive home and think “What the hell was this day?”  I have left feeling not only ineffective as a teacher, but as a human as well.  But I have also watched that lightbulb come on over a student’s head who was struggling with an idea and that is beautiful.  I have lectured where every pair of eyes was on me and not only did they listen, they got it, and for twenty minutes I feel invincible.  I have gone into classes completely prepared and watch the lessons I so carefully crafted crash and burn and I have also gone in winging it and watched them soar.  Again, I wonder, what is this life????

I guess after a few years of this that perhaps the highs won’t be so high and the lows won’t be so very low and while things won’t ever be centered, they might not be so jarring.  Until then, I am going to find shelter in the presence of my coworkers; these beautifully creative and cynical people who just get it.  They know.  They share their own stories to make me feel better or their lesson plans when I am adrift.  They keep me laughing, they tell me it is okay to cry and assure me I am not going insane.  I will take the nice words of students and use them to build a wall of defense around my heart to shield it from the mean kids who try to pierce it.  I’ll listen to the wise words of my husband who reminds me that I am not ineffective as a human and who remembers how hard I worked to get here.  Maybe I will repurchase the Smurfing Sing Song and see what other gems those wise blue creatures have to share with me.  And the next time someone asks me how teaching is, I will smile and assure them it is so much more than I ever smurfing thought it would be.