Don't send nudie pictures and other advice I'd give

Once upon a time, I put mothers on a pedestal, which means I put myself on a pedestal of perfection when I had N.

I could not stay on that pedestal.
Having a first baby after 6+ years of marriage and leaving behind my career and being a perfectionist with extraordinarily high expectations of motherhood was a recipe for emotional disaster.
I am not perfect, and I cannot achieve the extremely high expectations I put on myself.
Every day, I am still learning how to live with not always being able to live up to the goals I put on myself.

So my expectations have modulated, but I still think parents should walk the walk.
If they expect their children to behave in certain ways, they should model that.

If you don't want your children to drink to excess, YOU do not drink to excess.
If you want your children to take their education seriously, YOU take your and their education seriously.
If you don't want your children to be chronic complainers, YOU should not be a chronic complainer.
If you don't want your kids to be slobs, YOU should not be a slob.

I hold these same expectations for church ministers and teachers because their entire existence is working with others to strive for betterment.

Perhaps that is unfair; they are human after all.

I had a bit of an embarrassing situation this semester during my grad class when a teacher inadvertently showed me a picture of herself in a bra when she was swiping on her phone to show me something that was not herself in a bra. This would have been weird enough but she then told me it was a picture she'd texted her boyfriend.

Now, I am not much of a selfie taker ever, and I'm definitely not a nudie or half-nudie selfie taker. If D ever took such a picture of me, he'd have to dig his testicles from his esophagus.
But that's me.
Consenting adults can do as they want.
(I'd just prefer not to accidentally be a part of what other consenting adults do.)

What I would recommend, though, is the following:
1. delete these pictures so you don't unintentionally share them with more-or-less strangers.
2. be very careful of the advice you give young people or children about what to do because you could, like the pictures, unintentionally give them advice that you yourself do not follow. And if they find out, they will lose all respect for you (if they haven't already because kids are exceptionally good at deciphering bullshit and/or hypocrisy).

On the plus side of this weird situation, it did provide me an opening to discuss nudie photos and the aftermath with my teenage daughter.
It was nice to have an anecdote to tell her before I launched into a lecture.

Like full-time

I have worked 5 days of the long-term subbing job.
I have access to the grades.
I am planning the lessons.
I am giving feedback.
I am having students ask for my help.

I am also having conversations like this:
Student: "Why did you give me a zero for independent reading?"
Me: "Because you were sleeping."
Student: "But only for a minute."
Me: "Imagine how long you would have slept if I hadn't woken you up. You have to read, or pretend to read, for ten minutes."
What I did not say: "If you can't stay awake and/or pretend to read for ten minutes, you deserve a zero."

I have told myself that this job will be a good reminder for me of what it was like back when I worked full-time, as well as what it might be like if I worked full-time now with kids.

The principal introduced herself to me today and asked if I would be coming back full-time.
I wanted to answer: "Only if you'll hire me to work here."
But my response was, "Not for a while because we don't have transportation here, and my daughter is a freshman, and I can't work across the county and get her here and home each day."

What I'm remembering is that I am not good at turning OFF the teaching.
I keep looking for rubrics or lessons or activity ideas.
I keep writing myself notes of what I need to do tomorrow or the next day.
I'm thinking about the job when I'm not at the job.
My dining room table is filled with papers to be graded.
Such is full-time teaching.

What has felt hard is trying to schedule life around teaching, like getting M to his post-op ENT appointment.
Racing out the school door, dropping kids off at my house to be picked up by their parents, racing to M's school for pick-up, racing to the ENT.

I haven't been anything like full-time in nearly 15 years.

When I was explaining that this feels hard for me, someone replied, "Well, that's what every working parent experiences."

This person is right, except for the fact that this person is a man, and I'm 95% certain he hasn't made a habit of taking off work to take his child to the doctor or get her to afternoon/evening activities.
I assume he did do these things with his older children, but that is because he was divorced from their mother. I think had he been married to her, the bulk of the post-school child wrangling would have fallen to her (maybe it did anyway).

There is a part of me that asks myself if I'm crazy for actively trying to have a busy professional life that does not involve working full-time.
Full-time work would feel easier in a lot of ways.
I wouldn't have to ask "Where am I today?" and "What am I working on today? Subbing, cottage school, freelancing? Do I tutor tonight?"
Puzzling together part-time jobs is difficult in a weird way. It pays little considering how much time I give to it, but it gives me flexibility, which full-time employment does not.

What crazy things I will do in the name of "flexibility."

I often have to remind myself that non-full-time work also gives me a certain benefit called "active enjoyment of living" for both me and my family.

Me taking care of the bulk of home and kid stuff means D doesn't have to after work.
It adds to his active enjoyment of his non-work hours.
I have the energy to go to book club and occasionally make it to the gym and volunteer at the kids' schools and go to lunch with my parents.
I have a certain amount of "availability" that is valuable in and of itself.

And that's not nothing.

There are probably a lot of people who could work part-time and who would work part-time, but it isn't an option.
Or they have gotten used to their lifestyle and activities and costs and think they can't change anything.
Or they have taken on expenses that require them to work full-time.

And there are those families in which both parents have to work. But I think many of the people I know are people who think they have to, but they don't. They have confused their wants and their needs, as a lot of middle-class families seem to.
Private school, in most cases, is a want, not a need.
Having a newer car is a want, not a need.
Going on vacation every year is a want.
Remodeling the basement is a want.
Having a house at the lake is a want.
Having a boat is a want.

Teaching an economics class at the cottage school this year has forced me to delve back into opportunity costs and the truth that "there is no such thing as a free lunch."

The book nerd version of "Show us your t*ts"

The other day I wondered to myself how many books we have in our house.

Given that I've been writing about heavy topics of late, I thought I'd indulge my lighter side and pay homage to books.

I decided to go through my house and snap a photo of every place I find a book.

I started with the main floor:

 The dining room table (also my makeshift office)

The other side of the dining room table 

 My purse

 My desk in the kitchen

(Actually, there is a Jodi Picoult novel on my desk, too.)

 The living room

The bookcase by the front door

The upper floor where our bedrooms are:

 N's bookcase

N's bedside table

The boys' bookcase

Books in bins on the floor in the boys' room.

Book on boys' dresser.

Table in my bedroom

D's bedside table

 Book on a desk in my bedroom (I work in a lot of rooms in the house)

My bedside table

The basement:

 My bookcase

 D's sci-fi/fantasy books

Under the steps closet for miscellaneous books

A few years ago I actually got rid of a lot of books from college because I decided to only keep books I love.  I have sold or given away many children's books as the kids have outgrown them because there is only so much room in our house. D actually reads mostly ebooks, so we would have more if he didn't do that. I'm also a big library user, so I borrow regularly, which also cuts down on the books we own. 

See, I feel like I'm offering excuses for why my book hoarding behavior could be worse. 

Still, if there is any truth to articles like this, I think we're setting our kids up well. 

Voting

I vote in every election because I want a say in my government. No one has ever accused me of being an optimist (because I generally am not), but I believe my voice counts. Even if it doesn't make a decisive difference, it is valuable and counts because it is mine, and I think I'm very important.

I vote in every election because women before me fought to give me the right to vote. It hasn't even been 100 years since women were allowed to vote.

I vote in every election to set a good example for my children.

I do not vote in every election because my friends and family tell me to.
I do not vote because social media is blowing the heck up with people demanding that I vote or haranguing me to vote.

To be perfectly plain, it actually bugs me to see every single person I know urging me to vote.
It makes me not want to vote.

I am a bit very much hella contrarian and, perhaps, this is why I enjoy being around middle and high schoolers.
They are contrarians, too.
I understand them in this way.

Here is the thing--when I experience someone urging me to do something, and that something is typically political or religious because those are two things people often feel strongly about, I think to myself,
"Are you aware that you are strongly urging me to vote or find God because your bias assumes that I am going to vote the same way you do or find God the same way you do?"

Here is where the non-optimist part of me comes through--based on my experience on both ends of this. I do not believe that people are urging me to do things out of an abundance of neutral sentiment.

People generally urge others to do something because they expect others to do as they do and feel as they feel.

Once upon a time, I was a very strong breastfeeding supporter, and I still think breast is the best thing a baby can get. If and when I urged women to breastfeed by saying, "Are you trying breastfeeding?" or "Are you going to breastfeed?," I wasn't urging them to "just try it" or "do it for 3 weeks." Inside my head, I was urging them to do it for a full 12 months without any formula, and even longer since that is what the World Health Organization says. I wanted them to be as committed to breastfeeding as I was.

What I said and what I thought and expected were vastly different things.

When people have urged me to visit their church or seek God, they have not done so thinking that I'm going to believe in my own loosey-goosey, skeptical way. That I'm going to believe in kick-ass Jesus and not necessarily a literal translation of the bible.

They want me to full-on "COME TO JESUS" and be an evangelical and sing his praises on high and wear shirts that say, "I LOVE MY CHURCH" and believe every word of the bible is right, true, and not to be critically analyzed.

And I can't help but think that when people urge others to vote, they are doing it in part because their bias is that others are going to vote as they do.

My summary of my semester (and yes, I'm turning it in this way, shade and all)

I became a teacher in 2000, earning my MAT at B-----,
and have kept it valid for the past 18 years, which
has required me to take numerous graduate classes.
Although I have not taught full-time since 2004, I work as 
a substitute teacher for --- and have taught at E--- C----
C--- S---- since 2012. I also work as a freelance writer
and have been regularly published for the past eight years.

All of these experiences, combined, give me a number of
strengths as a high school English teacher. While I haven’t
been officially trained as an AP College Board teacher,
I modeled my E----- high school class on the AP
Literature and Composition class, creating lesson
plans that challenge and interest students. As a
professional writer, I know what good writing
is and the questions to ask to get students to produce
their best writing. As a substitute teacher,
I have learned how to quickly assess a room for student
needs and behaviors, as well as how
to de-escalate a situation.

However, not being in the classroom has also led to
some deficiencies in my abilities. Not networking with
other teachers or doing professional development beyond
graduate class has kept me from specific techniques that
have come down the pike over the years (such as
RACE (Restate, Answer, Cite, and Explain) and
FANBOYS/AAAWWUBBIS. Because I only see my cottage school
students on Fridays, and they do the assignments at home,
it has gotten  me out of the habit of thinking about the specific minute steps of teaching writing. 

Since I am not intending to return full-time to teaching
within the next couple years, I will continue to do what
I have done in the past--research things on my own and pick
up assignments/ideas when I substitute teach. I also pick
up ideas when I tutor students. I recently “stole” a neat
independent reading assignment from a teacher at N---
(I tutor an 8th grader in English). I have modified this
assignment for my high school cottage students to use
when we read Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. A smart teacher
recognizes good ideas when she sees them and knows that
you don’t have to recreate the wheel all the time.

I am both excited and nervous about the long-term sub
job I will do at E---- in a few weeks because it is Language
and Composition, and this is not my strong suit
(due to lack of experience teaching it). I am taking
active steps to get myself up to speed, such as reading
5 Steps to a 5 and reviewing logical fallacies and lessons
on rhetorical analysis writing. For me, this is not just
a sub job but an opportunity to get out of my “comfort zone”
of teaching AP Literature and Composition-type coursework
with my cottage school students.

In terms of what elements in schools and about students need
to change, that is a hard question to answer. Cell phones in high schools are a constant battle for teachers, as is a
feeling of ennui among students, a sense of school being
a bore and a chore. I don’t know if this is because of
standardized testing or because of the constant addition
of “new” assessments(like the BoS) without a lessening
of everything else that students have to do. I think we ask
a lot of students without remembering that if education
isn’t enjoyable, it’s not going to stick anyway.

To be completely honest, I didn’t learn very much from
this experience of observing 90 hours. Working with high
school students is not the hands-on “helping” that is
working with elementary or even middle school students.
I basically sat and watched lessons being taught  over and over and over, and it was boring. Sure, I picked up a
couple tips or tricks, like learning about Rubistar or
Wheeldecide, but I don’t know that these snippets justify
90 hours of my time. Perhaps if I didn’t have teaching
experience both in ___ and for the past six years with high
 schoolers at the cottage school and hadn’t gone
through --- and wasn’t in schools as a substitute,
I would have found this experience to be new and engaging.

I think what these 90 hours made me realize is that even
though I’m not in the classroom fulltime, that doesn’t mean I
can’t be a masterful teacher or a masterful substitute.
I am ableto establish a rapport with students, which is
what good teachers do. I do have a pretty solid
knowledge base and am willing/able to do whatever
research/work is necessary to bring that knowledge to students.
I am very organized and “on-top” of things, which is evidenced
by the  fact that I’m completing the work for EDUG 613
before November 1, when I have another month

to complete it.

A masterful teacher is always striving to be better, and
I think I do that as well, recognizing that I don’t know it all.
However, if I’m going to put effort into learning, I’d like
it to benefit me and feel like a real learning experience,
rather than busy work. I’m afraid a good portion of
this class has felt like busy work. It has been a good
reminder of what I don’t want my students
to experience.

We do have a race problem

It baffles me when white people say that there isn't a race problem.

Such statements are like me saying, "I don't have a cancer problem."

I mean, right this second, I don't have cancer (as far as I know) and no one I know and love has cancer (as far as I know). 

But beyond the bubble that surrounds little ole me are a LOT of people and many of them do have a cancer problem. 

Since they live in my neighborhood, in my community, my church, my city, I guess that means that the collective "we" does have a cancer problem. 

The collective "we" does have a race problem.

Why do I think this?

Yesterday there was a shooting by a white man of two black people at a grocery store that is less than 5 miles from my house.

When a man with a gun confronted the shooter in the parking lot, the shooter apparently told him, "Whites don't kill whites."

Also, our illustrious president keeps haranguing the NFL over its peaceful protests (in addition to lambasting any person who has skin that is a shade darker than him). 

Also, also a high school I was just at had students protest because white students have been using the "N" word as if it is perfectly ok. 

As far as I'm concerned, it is not up to white people to decide if there is a race problem, just like it is not up to a man who cannot be pregnant to decide if a pregnancy is difficult or a pain in the butt or if labor hurts.

It is not up to me to speak about the plight of poverty or whether it is as bad or as hard as it appears because I have not lived that experience.

I know we live in a time when experts and experience are worthless.
When anybody can just have any old random thought and it is accepted as the truth, without data and facts and relevance to back it up.
When scientists and economists and doctors are evidently lying and telling us untruths.
When living a certain life does not give you any real-world relevant knowledge with which to speak.

It is like my pre-parent self thinking I had any freaking CLUE what being a mom was actually like.

When white people say there is not a race problem, I suspect some of them, at least, are trying to be "beyond color," which many white people think is what it means to be non-racist.
We do not live in a world that is "beyond color," so this seems like a pointless endeavor.
Furthermore, not seeing someone's race is not seeing someone in their entirety.
Race isn't the sole determinant of a person's experience, but it is part of who they are, and to act as if their race has zero influence or impact seems absurd.

If I am working with students, I think if I said something ridiculous like, "I don't see color," the students would have every right to roll their eyes at me.
It is a lie; we all see color.
Just recently I was teaching about Kate Chopin's The Awakening, in which a quadroon nurse is mentioned. (A quadroon is a person who is one-quarter black.) I made the comment that I don't think to myself, "I wonder if that person is a quarter black or half black or an eighth black."
I don't do the Elizabeth Warren test of heredity.
But what I asked the students is what it says about a society if they refer to people as quadroons, if the society is even interested in how much of a percentage of a person is black.

Some white people who say there is not a race problem allude to the fact that they know a black person or are friends with a black person.
And my response is as follows: So what if you have black friends you occasionally see every once in a while.
This doesn't mean you don't have bias and feelings of racism inside, where the social media masses can't see.
(Also, like 98% of your "friends" are white, so give me a break.)

I work very hard to think deeply about racism and its impact, but I know darn good and well that I have had thoughts that stem from things I was taught or heard or "picked up" when I was a kid.
Even though that is not how I want to believe, it is there in my head.
Because I know it is there, I tell myself on the regular that all people feel as I do.
Whatever feelings I am capable of having, others are capable of having as well because we share a common humanity.
I guess if you're gonna have a mantra running through your head, there are worse ones to have.

Talking about racism is hard and uncomfortable.
I'm having a conversation with myself in this blog, and I feel uncomfortable right now.
I worry whether and how I offend black people, not because I'm intending to but because I just don't understand.
I want to understand.
I want to know.
I want to do better.

Teachable moment from the blog (gender & hair)

G told us yesterday that this week an organization came to his school and separated activities into boys/girls. When he walked by someone to take his card for where he was supposed to go, the person handing it to him said, "Here you go, young lady."

G said he just kept walking with his head down.
He didn't correct the person.
He said it really didn't embarrass him (either he is so used to it that it doesn't bother him anymore or we are helping him be a well-adjusted person who has a positive self-image--I vote for a little of both).

D and I encouraged him to speak up in the future, to say politely and calmly,
"I am a boy with long hair."

We told him that by doing so, he will gently bring people's attention to their lack of observation and their gender tagging.
We told him that by doing so, he will be helping other kids, be they boys with long hair or girls with short hair, who may feel VERY embarrassed when similar things happen to them.

G said to me, "I'm really glad you wrote that blog, mom."

I don't often feel like I'm winning as a mom, until moments like this when I do.