A decade of freelancing

While I don't do new year resolutions or get jazzed about celebrating what is an arbitrary "time change" event, I do recognize that within our human-imposed calendar we have milestone events that we recognize.
Birthdays, for example.

I do celebrate birthdays (mostly other people's birthdays), and I give a passing nod to anniversaries, too.

This year, 2020, marks a decade of freelancing for me.
I didn't ever intend to be a freelancer.
I didn't go "looking for it."
It was pure accident.
I saw an opportunity and thought, "What have I got to lose?"

In my first year of freelancing, I wrote three articles, and only one was paid.
I made $50 for it, which was fine because I was just so excited to have my name in print.
At the time, I was knee-deep in baby- and toddler-care, so to use my brain in a way that allowed me some quiet alone time and made me feel intellectual was huge.

Now, since the freelancing is still part-time, I write around 70 articles a year.
I've branched into more advertising-type work.
My pay has increased, too.

Opportunities have presented themselves in which I edit others' work.
Opportunities have presented themselves in which I train other writers.

Freelancing has made me a better English teacher.
Not every English teacher gets paid for their writing, and I'd venture to say most don't.
When I think about going back to teaching full-time, I know I'd have to give up my freelancing, and I really don't like that idea.
My freelancing feeds my teaching and vice versa.

One of my favorite things about freelancing is the serendipitous way in which it happened and how that one thing created a cascade of openness to other serendipitous opportunities that have brought me a tremendous amount of pleasure and growth. 

The one (and just about only) thing that brings me joy at Christmas

Sometimes, I can get into the spirit of Christmas (light in darkness, hope for the future, the kindness of strangers, etc, etc.), but this year was not one of those times.

I have just felt angry and resentful and frustrated and generally not-too-happy.

However, there is one thing that consistently brings me a bit of happiness during the Christmas season, and that is the ornaments I have bought (or others have bought) for my children.

Of course, there are the baby ornaments, which are sweet, but the ones I like most are the ones that show my children's interests throughout the years and the ones I have purchased for them from vacations and trips we've gone on.

For example, these are the ornaments I got for the boys from our three trips this year: Kennesaw National Battlefield in Atlanta, GA; Washington Park Zoo in Michigan City, IN; and Cape San Blas, FL. They are never excited to get ornaments, but I think they like pulling them out all the years later and remembering our adventures.

These are others...

Sanibel Island, FL

Grand Lake, CO

Rocky Mountain National Park

and Quebec City, where D and I visited for our 20th wedding anniversary.

Edisto Island, SC (pirate),

Tiana from Disney, and Sleeping Bear Dunes in Michigan. 

When I haven't been able to find actual ornaments, 

I've made do with magnets that I glue ribbons on. 

The E.T. one was from Universal Studios in FL.

And then there are the ones that show the kids' interests, even if, at the time, they made no sense to me. When G was 2, he loved any kind of car or truck, so the red tractor made sense. When N was 2, she picked out a school bus.

Then there was when N was big into dancing and being a ballerina.

When G was heavy into dinosaurs, I got this one for him. 

By the time the kids are out-on-their-own and have trees, they will have plenty from their childhoods to take with them.

OCD treatment, Part 1

Along with my medication, I have found motherhood to be a pretty good way for me to deal with my OCD and its incessant desire to have certainty.

There is nothing certain about motherhood, which is why I nearly lost my mind 15 years ago.
You can do everything "right" and your kid is still a mess or gets sick or is an asshole.
Also, what is "right" when it comes to parenting a kid?
Who knows.
There are no guaranteed "rights" or "wrongs."
What I do that is "right" for my oldest is a definite "wrong" for my middle or youngest.
Or vice versa.

I have become much more comfortable with the certainty that I cannot control my kids or their outcomes.
The only certainty I have is that it is all uncertain.
I have to be ok with doing what was in my power to do, even if it is not everything and even if it doesn't work.
I have to be ok with saying "I tried."

I keep reminding myself of this as G and I work on his OCD treatment.

This past week was the first in which G had homework for his OCD, and it has been a doozy.
If G defined this homework, he would probably call it torture:
He had to wear pants for 2 hours every day and tie his shoes "the standard way" and wear them 2 hours every day. (The "standard way" is the bunny knot, possibly a double knot; not his convoluted tucked and rolled travesty of shoe-tying.)

He (and I) tried every day.
Some days he could wear shoes for 2 hours and some days he could wear pants for 2 hours, but he could only tolerate uniform pants for 20 minutes tops.
And he struggled with doing both at the same time.

For someone who does not have OCD, this all sounds absurd.
"Put on pants and move on with your day!"
But there are people for whom throwing on a pair of pants is like....an ordeal.

The whole not wearing pants thing and only wanting to wear one pair of shorts is a relatively new phenomenon; last spring and summer he wore whatever.
I think middle school had something to do with it--the uniforms, the new place, the weirdness of middle school boys in the bathroom, having to change clothes for physical education class.

Some of it is his changing body.
He is in that awkward stage where it is hard to find clothes that fit.

Unfortunately, in dealing with OCD, we are making it very unhappy, which means G has been having bursts of anger and irritability.
No one likes feeling anxious, which is why the compulsions begin....to make the anxious feelings go away.
But they don't go away for long, which means the compulsions get worse and more involved.

At the moment, we're pissing G's OCD off royally.

Books Read and/or Reread for 2019

Total of those pictured: 86

Also, reread the following 11 books:
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt
Belle Prater's Boy by Ruth White
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill
The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume

Still reading the following 2 books:
Circle by Madeline Miller
Six Years by Harlan Coben

Right now, my total that I've completely finished is 97, but by the end of the year, I should hit the 100 mark.
Woo-hoo!

Seeking additional treatment for OCD

I have sometimes thought that G's OCD may require me to seek additional treatment for my own OCD.

I can feel my own internal anxious discomfort increasing when he does his compulsions.

After watching him straighten and fix something repeatedly, I have to fight the urge within myself to start fixing things in the same room (albeit things he wasn't fixing).

Partly, I stop myself from fixing the armchair covers when he fixes the couch cushions because of the mental picture of the two of us in my head. It just seems absurd...us OCDing in circles around each other.

I also have to say to myself, "Fixing stuff is not going to restore order into your life or his. You just have to feel the discomfort and deal."

G has been on medication for his OCD since he was 6-years-old.
While his dose has increased over time a bit, I'm not 100 percent convinced that his dose shouldn't be increased even more, but his psychiatrist has seemed hesitant to up it.
I like his psychiatrist, but I got the feeling that since G's grades are ok, everything is ok.
As if grades are all that matters.
But G's issues have never affected school, really.
While this may not always be the case, G has always struggled more with functioning at home.

School provides more routine and structure than what life outside of school provides, which might be one reason why I always loved school.
The whole reason I wanted to be a teacher is that I liked the idea of organized chaos---there was a bit of unknown but there was a whole lot of the same old stuff happening.
I sometimes wonder if the same isn't true for G.

My feeling that we were missing something that we could be doing for G led me to discover that there is a clinic locally that deals with nothing but OCD.
I took G for a consultation after he asked again when he could see the psychiatrist because his symptoms (like rewriting his "rs" and "ns" on his schoolwork) were driving him crazy.

Today, he did the first part of the assessment to determine his OCD subtype, and he will soon begin exposure response prevention therapy.
It is hella expensive, but I'm hoping that seeking treatment at a place that does nothing but OCD will help him (and us) find more peace.

("The Types of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder," Owen Kelly. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-are-the-different-types-of-ocd-2510663)

Teachable moments all around

I try to remain calm in the face of teachable moments, which can be embarrassing as fuck.

A case in point:
The mother of M's friend texted me with screenshots showing M's messaging his friend (her son) on Google Classroom things like, "Suck suck suckety suck your ball."

My first instinct was to laugh because I'm childish.
My second instinct was to think, "Yep. That's a 10-year-old boy."
My third instinct was to think, "Dear god, I'm embarrassed."
My fourth instinct was to think, "This is a good teachable moment for M."

So I replied to the mom that I would talk to M, and that I suspect his middle school brother's influence was having an impact.
She was mostly concerned about it being on Google Classroom where it could pop up in front of teachers, which I didn't even think about.

When M came home, I asked him about it.
I told him he can't type stuff like that on Google Classroom because other people, like his friend's mom and possibly teachers, might see it.

I did not give him hell for typing, "Suck balls."

My hope is that in talking to him as I did, he will
1. listen and abide
and
2. know that he is human, makes mistakes, and can fix them.

Some of my students are struggling with plagiarism, and so I hope to take a similar tact.
Rather than lambasting them and making them feel ashamed, I'm hoping to talk about it and how it can be a very complex issue.

It occurred to me while I was thinking about plagiarism how often teachers, myself included, inadvertently plagiarize.
I don't know a single teacher who doesn't regularly go online to get lesson plan ideas, questions, activities, etc.
Teachers use these and unless the worksheets they use are copyrighted, there is little or no indication of where the lesson plan, activity, etc. came from.

I have asked teachers if I can have a copy of their worksheets, but I don't give them credit for it.
And the truth of the matter is that I don't know where they got it.
Did they create it or did they get it from the original person or did they get it from someone else who "borrowed/stole" it from the original person?
One worksheet I use on how to embed quotations didn't have any sources cited (a local high school teacher had used it with her students, and I liked it so borrowed, but I changed it up a bit.)
I ended up looking for it online, and the only one I found online said, "stolen liberally from a variety of sources."

This is one of those super gray-area issues that make me unable to give any student hell about what they are or are not doing.

My goal is to have a very open and honest conversation and guide them so that they can avoid making similar mistakes in future (when the consequences might be much harsher).

The dress code as it nears possible change

Yesterday I attended the SBDM meeting about dress code.
This was not a "vote" but a first-read of the changes that parents and students would like to see made.
There will be a second read next month followed by a vote.

I have mixed feelings about the whole entire thing.

On the one hand, I'm glad that many of the dress code proposals are being discussed.
A discussion is needed.

One of the SBDM parents who has worked with other parents on developing the revised code was very clear about what the thinking was behind the changes and what concerns exist.
She was an effective advocate.
It helped that there were a handful of parents attending who could bear witness to the conversation and the discussion.
The news media was there, too, which doesn't hurt.

I watched a TedTalk today about how important it is to ask questions.

Last night's meeting was a good reminder of why it is critical to ask things like, "Why do we even have this rule? What were we thinking when we made it in the first place?"
Because sometimes the reasons why a rule was created no longer exist or they exist in a different way and because we haven't thought about why the rule was created, we don't revise it when we should.
We get stuck in a "that's the way we've always done it" routine.
I saw that in action at the meeting.

But I'd be lying if I said that, given everything I know, I don't feel that getting a new dress code is cause for celebration.
I will not feel a sense of victory when all this is said and done.

What I noticed with my own eyes and ears is that there is a palpable fear on the part of teachers (or at least those on SBDM) about what these dress codes will mean, and I'm not sure I understand it.

It is hard for me to empathize because dress codes are not a hill I choose to die on.
I didn't spend one second focused on what kids in my class were wearing when I was in the classroom full-time or when I'm in a classroom subbing.
My focus is 1. are they learning and 2. are they respectful in the ways that truly matter.

I nailed kids on lying to me and cheating on homework because that matters.
I nailed kids on not doing their work because they could do it, and I knew it, and that matters.
Whether they had rips in their jeans at the thigh matters not one iota.
I personally believe that some kids who know a teacher makes a stink about dress code will actively violate the dress code for the pleasure of seeing their teacher's head pop off.
(This sounds like something I might do, to be honest.)

I'm not saying their fear is unwarranted; I simply don't get it.

What I heard with my own ears is that some teachers look at this incident as "an unhappy parent complaining to the media" (which I think means me).
And I know that this same song was said to parents at the district's showcase of schools.
Things like, "Oh, the news reports are overstated. It was just one angry parent."

So in the same way that I don't "get" their concerns, they don't seem to "get" parents' concerns about girls being disproportionately impacted by dress code restrictions.

And what that says to me is that there is a culture issue, a climate issue that cannot be remedied by changing a dress code.
The dress code may be changed, but the mindset will not.
And so if this ends up being a "victory," it won't really feel like one.
While I think I knew this would be the case, it still feels a little disappointing.