Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman

Envy-Free at 51?

I’m at the age when I should have stopped looking around to compare myself and my life to anyone else’s, and certainly not to everyone else’s. It’s time (51 is definitely after the supposed watershed moment) for me to rejoice in ME! I am free to discard all thoughts of limitations, weight issues, and life lackings—because, apparently, just getting to this point should be enough of an ego boost to last the rest of my lifetime!

HA!

And the trick’s on me because, unfortunately, this is just one more thing for me to feel bad about having failed: apparently I am the only woman who has failed in the “Look World, No Envy and No Jealousy! I Love My Almost Green Lawn Now That I’m 50!” stage of development.

Woe is me.

It’s not that I haven’t evolved at all, but there’s just no way a lifetime of thinking that I’m the smartest/stupidest/most attractive/least attractive/nicest/meanest woman around can be dismissed, or wished away just because THEY say it should be gone. You see, I’m still dealing with the darn THEYs of the world.

Even writing this has me fraught with comparisons because I am not writing the way I am supposed to. I can’t stay focused for more than ten minutes (I lied, five minutes) before I need to click to see if I have any emails or if there’s some undiscovered news to read. If I were a real writer, I’d focus fully for at least two hours without letting myself be tempted, even by the need to re-re-reheat my coffee. Alas, failure again.

And what of my being beyond all thoughts of could haves and should haves. I have found in my teeny tiny bit of research that it is the women who have checked off some accomplishments (besides the children, I mean, but that’s not exactly a unique accomplishment) who are able to lay claim to that “universal 50+ trait” of not comparing oneself to any other woman in the room. Is it that I am supposed to be content with not achieving any of the achievements I had dreamed of just because I’m 50+? Does it mean that I’m supposed to be content with whatever it is that I have done and not worry about falling further and further away from what I think I am capable or want I want to do? If that’s the case, doesn’t it assume, sort of, that I have given up, that I am no longer going to push myself because I have done all that I can expect from myself? But I am not ready to throw in any towels—I’m still here and hope to be for a while to come.

The real difference for me, pre and post the dawning of this marvelous age of the new Middle Age, is that I have less of a speak-up suppressor. The hand-over-mouth synchronicity that was there from my teen years to not so very long ago has vanished—POOF! The big mouth I was when I was still wearing dresses and Danskins is back, but the big difference is that in 3^rd grade it was just a need to talk constantly, now it’s a need to say what I think—even if it’s not my turn to speak and even if it’s not censured for proper company. The topics are often of the “think but don’t say” variety; it does feel good, I admit, to have overridden the what-will-they-say internal censor.

My skin. Apparently my skin is supposed to be very very comfy right about now, but I look in the mirror and I see that my face is fuller than it’s supposed to be and not as bright as it’s supposed to be. In my mind, I am the woman of my wedding pictures. I was 24 then. I am not now. I’m not even married now. Yet that’s my mind’s image of myself. How the heck am I supposed to change from perception to reality? And, really, are all those other happy-with-their-lawn women really seeing themselves in the here-and-now or are they trying to trick me for someone else’s good? Is it really bad that every time I peek in the mirror I am disappointed that I’m still me, as in puffy-and-tired-faced Laura? Isn’t it, in some sense, a good thing that I am not willing to forsake my hopes and dreams just because I have reached an age milestone?

Why am I feeling bad that I’m not aging the way I’m supposed to?

Is it self-esteem issues, still? Or is it that this magical glory-be-me revelation isn’t something that we all get to share? Perhaps, as in all things, it happens for some while for others it just doesn’t happen with exclamation marks or over tea with my closest, dearest friends since kindergarten.

What’s wrong with a bit of envy? Isn’t it a bit of a driving force? Can everything really be completely internally driven? Do we all become yogi masters when we step over the 50 milestone? Maybe the key is that by this time we have made our own internal recipes where we can adjust what we need with what we have and what we can still get, as opposed to thinking that all’s well, couldn’t be better, I’m where I’m supposed to be without really believing it—or afraid to believe it.  

Appreciating Teacher Appreciation Week

I know that it’s Teacher Appreciation Week because there’s free food at school. Last week, in preparation for the big event, we were feted with, as one colleague put it, mayonnaise-five-ways. Okay, there was pulled pork to go with the mayonnaise salads, but still it was a July 4^th meal two months early. We’re professionals and sadly/gladly, we were pleased not to eat our Lean Cuisines and leftovers one day during our lunch half-hour. This week, so far we have had a lunchtime barbeque, donuts, cake on a stick, a Costco cookie, and coffee. (I must admit, coffee brought to me on a cart was quite the treat.) Not that I don’t mind all the food-based treats, but I wonder if there is another way to show appreciation for teachers besides with food?

Here are some ideas.

1. Each and every student will say at least one nice thing to each of his/her teachers. A few suggestions popped into my head. “That was an interesting lesson, thank you.” “Now I get it, thank you.” “I’m sorry that I didn’t do a good job on the assignment, but I have redone it, without expecting a higher grade but just to show you what I am capable of and what you have taught me that I am capable of. Thank you” “You look lovely today, as always.” “You are the best teacher” (this can be said, without any irony or contradiction, to every teacher).
2. Each and every parent, no teamwork here, must write a Thank You note to his or her children’s teachers—for every single teacher of every single child. To do this each parent must know the name of his/her child’s teachers, must know the subject the teacher teaches, and must know some specifics that can be mentioned in the note. This information could be gleaned from your child. Surely, writing the note is something all parents know how to do since they have told their children, on various occasions, to write Thank You notes.
3. All parents and students will refrain from sending any emails that are thinly-disguised or not even vaguely-disguised rants at a teacher, and if any are sent, they will certainly not be CC-ed to assistant principals, principals, or superintendents. Honestly, you can assume that it is not the teacher’s fault that your child is failing, and it is not the teacher’s fault that your child is not doing his/her work and it is not the teacher’s fault that your child plagiarized a paper. Generally when a child is not doing his or her work, it's because things are not quite right at home--so parents, look to yourselves before you start blaming teachers.
4. For the entire week, parents would need to help their children with their homework. Not to do it for them, but to sit there and explain  c a l m l y  what he didn’t get at school. And if, for whatever reason, he still doesn’t understand what you’re explaining ever-so-thoroughly and effectively, figure out another way of getting the idea across so that he can feel good about himself and his learning. For each of the week’s sessions you will never voice your frustration, nor will you express your frustration by leaving the room (other than to go to the bathroom), until the learning is done. At absolutely no point will you use the S-word (as in stupid) or the L-word (as in lazy).
5. “If you can read, thank a teacher.” I’ve seen that bumper sticker—and I think it holds true. Every person in this country should acknowledge, in some way (see above and below) the positive impact that teacher’s have had on his/her life. (Yes, there are teachers who are not good, as there are parents who are not good, but who takes away a Mother’s Day Card from a mother or a Father’s Day card from a father? Positive thinking, we are positive-thinking.)
6. For one week let us teachers teach without the dual requirement to entertain the masses. This is not stand-up comedy and this is not a sitcom. (Wait, it probably is a sitcom. Every single classroom could easily be the basis for a sitcom.) Grammar is not fun. Writing essays is not the most enjoyable of activities. SO WHAT! It needs to be done. There are skills that need to be mastered, and not just for tests that dumb-down, but for life that invites possibilities. Do it! Do your work. Yes, it’s called work—school work and home work. But if kids would try for just a moment to focus on the learning—on what the teacher has to teach—and not on the fact that they would rather be connected to some gadget, learning may occur.
7. Pay a one-day babysitting fee for your child. Let’s assume a babysitter these days makes $11 an hour and a school day is 7.5 hours, so $82.50 would be owed for each student to be paid to a teachers’ fund at your child’s school. This money could then be used at the teachers’ discretion; of course, a professional community would be established to decide how to use the funds. Luxuries such as coffee machines, microwaves, refrigerators for teacher workrooms, or even “teacher chairs” that don’t look like they trickled down from the Principal’s Conference Room two principals ago could be considered.
8. And one thing that did happen this week that I truly appreciated: students wrote nice thank you comments on paper apples and gave them out to teachers. Too bad that most had exactly the same comments so there was a hint of insincerity, and that mine had a misused contraction. But here, at least, there were no calories involved and there seemed to be an honest note of appreciation. THANK YOU STUDENTS!

 

 

Book Review: Love for Grown-ups

Book Review: Love for Grown-ups: The Garter Brides’ Guide to Marrying for Life When You’ve Already Got a Life by Ann Blumenthal Jacobs, Patricia Ryan Lampl, and Trish Rabe

A big recommendation goes out to women and men to read Love for Grown-ups. This book is about how we, the “over the hill” folks, are not so over the hill, or once we’ve all made it over the hill there’s a sensitivity and kindness that weren’t there on the other side—or at least there’s the acknowledgement that that’s what it’s all about: being loving, finding love, continuing to be loving, and finally being maturely loved (as in loved and respected for all one’s qualities—and personality quirks). What’s so wonderful about this time of life, as the Garter Brides describe in their book, is that both women and men have decided that kindness, consideration, and good sex are all things to want, to search for—to deserve and to expect. No longer are we to believe those adages about women over 40 and their chances of marrying being akin to winning a Vogue make-over. No, we are to listen and heed all the happily-ever-after stories of the many midlife women they have compiled in this book, including the three authors’ lovely stories, to make us know that we are the winning ticket! 

This book is listed as being a Self Help book, but as a non self-help book fan, I can say that this is not a simplistic do this and this will happen type of book. It’s more that Blumenthal Jacobs, Lampl, and Rabe laid out their stories and invited the reader into the lives of so many other women so that the reader can think that “you know, maybe it could happen to me too, maybe I can still be happy in a relationship.” And that, truly, is more honest help than I got from friends who just tried to pick up my spirits saying that I deserve happiness (which is true for all of us). But that’s not the same as showing how it has happened and how it could happen to me.

And now that I am in a relationship, although I don’t know if it’s going to last more than another month, there is a security that I feel because of this book, and it’s not necessarily that I will marry again, which is not my goal. No, the security is in the fact that Love for Grown-ups puts all those horror stories that I lived through via on-line dating into context—that there is a reason to believe that it could happened to me too.

While up-beat on the whole, the book tries to be realistic, but since the writers’ stories are so positive-in-the-end, “look we got married!”—it’s up to the reader to add her dose of doubt. The section on blending kids and families was, for me, not as true to my reality, but who’s to say my tough teen is not the exception? I did appreciate, though, that they did lay out the problems that arise and how they and other couples handled them. That, surely, was insightful.

So if you need to read some real life 40+ love stories, this is the place to go.  

The War on Women: Foot First

Sure, a woman’s ability to not get pregnant, stop a pregnancy, care for her body-mind-soul, feed her children, support herself, house her partner, tend to her parents is being undermined, curtailed and impinged upon, but at least she can buy all the guns she wants!

And a woman’s ability to be judged fairly, without any bias based on what she doesn’t have between her legs is being thwarted, but at least she can understand her place and not fight against the little men with their little fill-in-the-blank who inhabit the hollow—I mean hallowed—chambers of representation across the land!

No, my indignation is directed toward the real War on Woman, namely the War on Women’s Feet. How on earth have women agreed—paid of their 77-cents-to-the-dollar-earnings—to be strapped to five inch heels? What does this say about us that we have let this happen—that we have not forced shoe stores and shoe-sites to return these woman-hating shoes back to their designers with the heels sawed off! (A shoe castration, if you will.)

What is attractive (read sexy) about a woman taking itty bitty steps and needing to hold onto a man who is wearing quarter-inch heels because otherwise she couldn’t even attempt to walk straight to the nearest seat? (I know the answer to this is obvious, but still, for my soul, I need to cry out the question in protestation.)

I have to admit, there was a moment in the middle of a DSW when I thought that perhaps I was wrong—one of those “if everyone’s doing it, it must be right” moments. But then I attempted to try on a pair and came to the rapid conclusion that this style is yet another form of disempowerment.

I took off my well-worn black flats and prepared myself to mimic the stars on their red carpets and us ordinary women at the mall. With one five-inch shoe on, my other foot hovered above the ground—I held onto the shoe display for dear life. It felt like I was training to walk on stilts, only there wasn’t a circus performer there to instruct me how to maintain my balance. Quickly, before I should fall and be expelled permanently from the Woman of the World department, I put my shoeless foot back on terra firma, put the stilt-shoe back in its box and said goodbye to extreme fashion, goodbye to thinking that high heels are what defines a woman’s sensuality.

Was I not woman enough for this or was I too much a woman? Why is this the style now, now when women’s rights are being rescinded law by law? Why, when it had seemed passé to even talk about feminism (my teenage daughter mocked my even discussing it) is this backlash coming at us—first our wombs, then our feet? Why are they trying to manipulate us back to the times of bound feet and cobbled expectations? Why, when so many men and women respect each other as equals, is this undermining happening?

Is the extra height an extreme message that we have forgotten what we’re really valued for—or what we should value about ourselves? And why has walking on stilts come to be equated with one’s sexiness?

Women—let’s show those shoe purveyors and trendsetters what we think of their attempts at objectifying us into some kind of uber-stilted-Barbies and put our two feet down on the earth, walking right to the voting booth.

(I wonder if the Koch Brothers are investors in Louboutin?)

 

The Education Philosophy of 0=50

“What does doing 0 work but getting a grade of 50 teach a child?” No, this is not a rhetorical question, neither is it a hypothetical one. It is a question that teachers across the country seem to be dealing with (well, maybe not across the country, but at least in Virginia and Colorado).

“Why would a student get a 50% on an assignment that he did not do?” is a better question. Or perhaps: “Why would a teacher be told/directed to give a student a 50% on an assignment that was assigned but which the student did not do?” From what I understand there are two main rationales.

One: not to damage the ego of a child because, you know, getting 0% for the 0% effort he put into his schoolwork would cause his self-confidence to plummet. This is as opposed to doing 100% of the work, and working hard at it, and getting a grade that makes him proud of the work he did—or at least aware that effort is rewarded, and that you learn and improve the more work you do. That, apparently, isn’t such a sound idea these days. Perhaps it is too much of a retro idea and education theorists and philosophers are all about continually re-inventing the education wheel.

Two: too many Ds and Fs look bad for a teacher and, more importantly, a school. What would the pie charts and the bar graphs and statistics look like if a school has too many students at the bottom end of the grade alphabet? No, that’s not good because then schools would have to worry about being labeled low performing or not improving student performance enough, which is worse, apparently, than actually figuring out why a student is not doing his work and working with him—so grade inflation is the way to prevent that. (I love the word “performance,” which is as appropriate as “are you still working” when you are eating in a restaurant. Shouldn’t the word be knowledge or understanding, you know, something related to the learning process; and in relation to the restaurant, shouldn’t it be “eating,” as in are you still eating that apple pie?)

“No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top,” in their efforts to raise the educational level of all students, sure have resulted in some skewed practices. I understand and fully support believing in every single child in this country and giving him or her the best education possible, but encouraging kids to be lazy seems to be faulty—or lazy—logic to me.  

I have taught high school freshmen who are stunned when they receive 0s. Seriously, they are upset and confused that I don’t give them credit just because they’re such wonderful and cute kids. Someone please tell me what real-world lesson this emulates that wouldn’t result in someone going to jail—or having resulted in having some really great coupons?

Why should 14-year-olds first be learning that work=grade or that there are consequences for their actions/inactions? Wouldn’t it be better, for all of us now and into the future, if we taught kids that they are as accountable for their grades as we the educators and the parents and the administrators and society are? 

 

Being a Big Mouth with Friends

One of the perks of being a middle-aged woman (besides the physical alterations, faltering marriages, temperamental teens, and capacity-diminishing parents) is the ability for every woman you meet to become an instant friend.

Oh, wait--that’s me dreaming that all women did that—that we are all big mouths by the time we celebrate our 40^th birthday because, honestly, what are we waiting for? Why hold in the aches until you can make them momentarily disappear with savory, sweet, and liquid munchies or share them in a fifty-minute counseling session that doesn’t begin to ease the pain you’ve experienced since last week’s visit.

For years my marriage disintegrated until home and husband were cursed words. I would call my mother in tears, but she couldn’t give me more than a guilty opportunity to vent, what with her 54-years of holding hands with my father, and a “bear it” attitude. But tell friends, that was not done; I believed that we’re supposed to deal with the hand we’ve been dealt. And in the study, “Taboo Topics among Close Friends,” Robin Goodwin found that, no surprise here, “Most taboo topics reflected unwillingness to discuss family matters or hurt feelings.” This closed-door—or rather closed mouth—policy is pervasive in many cultures.

Naima Brown-Smith noted in “Family Secrets” that “families keep secrets as a way of protecting themselves against perceived vulnerabilities.” When we’re vulnerable in the home—we want to appear strong outside of it—or at least capable of having a conversation without breaking down in tears. Even in this age of social media, Brown-Smith found that “Among the most common explanations for why outsiders do not know more about family life is that information is considered personal and/or that revealing certain things would demonstrate inadequacies.” Let’s finally admit it ladies—by the time we get our first errant chin-hair, we surely should have recognized some personal lackings.

In a 2011 study, “Misery Has More Company Than People Think,” researchers at Stanford, Berkeley and Syracuse Universities observed that when we don’t share our negative emotions we end up with “less social support, more depressive symptoms, lower well-being, and less life satisfaction.” By not sharing, never mind over-sharing, we’re harming ourselves—and our friends.

I was only able to confide in one friend about my divorce and that was only after she overheard my ex-husband yelling at me on the phone, something, she finally admitted, she could relate to. Another friend, recently divorced and living in a different city, could offer her lessons learned because we needed to talk about something besides our daughters. And I needed that—I needed friends to talk to—ones I could call, free of charge, for insight and battle cries. I needed to not be solitary in my pain.

Having no one to friend is apparently not the reason why we’re not sharing. In the study, “Social Connectivity in America,” researchers at USC and the University of Toronto found that from 2002 to 2007 American adults have on average ten friends “they meet or speak with at least weekly with a few additional virtual friends and migratory friends” (internet friends who become face-to-face friends). So we’re underutilizing our friends, and ourselves as friends.

Why not admit when the marriage is hollow? Do you really think you’re the only one who has nothing to say to your husband when he comes home after the kids are asleep, never mind no sex? Do you think only your mother needs more care than you can provide through a telephone? Why should someone have to say to a friend that everything is fine when nothing is fine except the weather? Why are we still our mothers with their notions of dirty laundry flapping in the wind?

At my parent’s 50^th anniversary party, my mother told people that my husband couldn’t come because he had to work; she couldn’t bring herself to say that we were separating. But once she did start to tell her friends, she found that they could run a series of worst son-in-law competitions. It was a revelation and a release for her—and me.

We need to follow my mother’s example (I can’t believe I just wrote that)—speak honestly and openly. We need to trust each other, because we are the village—and shouldn’t we shape it to fit our needs? It’s time, surely, to admit that we need friends, not just to see a chick flick or get away from the kids, but because they are our best counselors and sounding boards.

Later today I will eat cucumber sandwiches with friends. I am imagining crustless white bread sandwiches and tea with cream. And maybe I’ll get a real conversation going by making a revelation or two. (Would talking about chin hairs count?)

 

 

We All Wear Underwear

On Sunday Pastor Dennis Terry said that anyone who lives in the US who doesn’t believe that this is a Christian nation whose supreme leader is Jesus should “Get out!”

I’m Jewish—I don’t worship Jesus, but thanks for making me feel so at home.

On Monday three Jewish children and a rabbi were killed in Toulouse by a terrorist linked to Al-Qaeda.

I’m a Jewish mother—I take the targeting of Jewish children particularly hard. (I can’t type the word “innocent” before child since it goes without saying that a child is innocent and has done no one any harm.)

I know that there is a difference between these acts, but at the core—at the thoughts behind the vile words and the violent act—not so much.

As a Jewish woman, I’m not feeling that the world is my kosher oyster.

Add to the anti-Semitism the War on Women going on full-steam ahead, and I’m feeling even more encircled by people who have no desire to let me be who I am if it’s not the same as who they are.

Then add to all that the fact that I’m a teacher and I can tell you, it’s a shock that my hurt hasn’t transformed to anger. But that is not what I do—unlike these men.

What unifies these men? Is it arrogance? Or hatred? Or envy? Emptiness perhaps? Whatever it is, I’m glad I don’t have it. I’d rather have to wonder about what evil will emerge next—and how to try to prevent it—than worry that people will see into the evil within me.

It would be nice, wouldn’t it, if those who claim to speak for God would heed his words. But those people are usually doing the talking, not the listening. It would have been nice, wouldn’t it, if they had heeded at least one little commandment, the one that seems to encapsulate the rest: You shall not steal. As in don’t take from someone what doesn’t belong to you. Don’t steal a life. Don’t steal a thought. Don’t steal a hope. Don’t steal. Keep your hands to yourself. Keep your words to yourself.

And the next time they feel that they're better than everyone else, they should remember that we all wear underwear and we all poop.

 

Rape: The Scourge of Our Time (II)

The following piece is cross-posted at Daily Kos. 

This post was originally published in December. Unfortunately, I felt the need to revise it to reflect news that the War on Women around the world is unrelenting. 

This week I was devastated by the way women are treated in Morocco. How could a law, as in something legal and condoned by society, allow a rapist, as in someone who forced himself on a woman, would be able to twist his crime into something innocent, noble even, if he married his victim? (Sanctity of marriage?) So Amina Filali, an innocent teenage girl except for the fact that she was female and that she was raped, which is her fault because she’s a girl and, well, you know that is inherently evil (a cultural original sin that seems to transcend all cultures), was placed in the care of a man who obviously has violence issues rather than his being carted off for some anger-management training in the Western Sahara.

A few weeks ago I was all fired up about the heinous way women are treated in Afghanistan; the brutal absurdity of imprisoning women for being raped and of forcing them to marry the men who raped them; and how unhealthy it is for a society to give men absolute power over women.

Then my boyfriend said that I should think about how many women in the military are raped; “Google ‘rape military,’” he said. Then he mentioned a female soldier who accused a man (working for a contractor) of raping her, and how he got off with barely a slap on the wrist. And her, he said, she was jailed.

He’s right: All the wrongs committed against women cannot be dropped on the laps of Moroccan and Afghani men. We can’t just pooh-pooh the men of Afghanistan who conceal women behind burkas and walls, and who torch their schools, and rape them with bestial impunity, because the rest of the world doesn’t exactly present a shining example of gentlemanly behavior.

And then I thought of forced ultrasounds, both the transvaginal kind and the cool-jelly belly sort. And this War on Women (or are they calling it the Defense of the Purity of Women Campaign?) that these pale American men, upstanding citizens all, are waging on women because we’re, you know, not as smart and important as they are. Just because someone has a boy part, what makes him the arbiter of what is or is not right for those of us without the big dingle dangle?

Women in the Congo, Bosnia, Kuwait, Sudan, Sri Lanka, and Rwanda have been raped as a course of war, as they have been during other conflicts, and throughout history. Reports of Libyan soldiers raping citizens surfaced a few months back, as have sexual assaults by Egyptian police against demonstrators.

I googled “us military rape statistics,” and 2,230,000 results came up. That’s a lot of stories about men in the military who rape, and women (in the military and civilians) who have been raped by our representatives.

And here in the US, where we attempt to look down on their mistreatment of their women, well, we actually have a term for when a man doesn’t get that “no means no.” Date rape is not quite akin to opening a door for a woman. And the acceptance of the twisted logic of “she asked for it” by wearing a dress that was too tight or too revealing, or by being out too late, or by drinking too much is a psychic rape of all women. Women do not ask to be violated. No, we Americans are not beacons in any one’s night.

People say that in Afghanistan it is an expression of their culture. Yeah, sure. Men take every right from a woman except the right to inhale and exhale and we let “culture” cover for that constant humiliation and exercise of power. Then what is it here? Can someone state as truth that rape is a reflection of our culture because we so degrade women by objectifying and sexualizing them? Have we let the deviants define us?

Is the genesis of these rapes by Moroccan men, African rebels, European fighters, and American soldiers the same? Is the problem a universal acceptance of “boys will be boys”? Have we conceded the stage to the bullies?

Googling “rape” brings up 206,000,000 results. No, we cannot breathe a sigh of relief that at least we don’t live there—because we do! Women can be strong, but not as strong as a 200 lb. man with societal support (for what else is indifference?) on his side.

Is rape the scourge of our time? We have defeated illnesses, now we must defeat a sickness. Or is it the arrogance of men? Or are they the same thing?

A person who rapes is sick in the crudest sense of the word. And it is unhealthy to ignore a sickness in our midst. Why are we always protecting men? Why are we protecting those who need no protection? Maybe we women are being forced back to being the weaker sex because society is unable or unwilling to protect us. What does that say about American culture?

Legislatures across the country are now our aggressors, taking it upon themselves to violate women. What’s the difference between Article 475 of Morocco's penal code that lets a rapist become a husband and the laws going through various state legislatures that violate a woman’s sovereignty over her own body?

When Silence Is Not Golden

This piece is cross-posted at Daily Kos.

My mother has, or should I say, had a new best friend. That was until she told me that she didn’t ask a question during a class until the break because she didn’t want her new friend to tell her that it was a stupid question. Now I understand that my mother could use some new friends since she was widowed a couple of years ago and far too many of the 70- and 80-year women she knows are fearful that my mother is a white-haired, tennis-playing husband-thief, but this acceptance of hers that she needs to alter her behavior to suit her friend was just too much. I mean, was she not listening to me complain about my controlling husband and how I held my mouth so as not to aggravate him as much as I don’t listen to her talk about what she had for dinner last night?

Allowing someone to have a sort of remote control over your mouth for fear of annoying them, surely is a twisting of the golden rule that “silence is golden.” It's also called being bullied.

It’s not just my mother and me who don’t realize that watching your words around a friend or partner is wrong until it’s too late, until you’ve lost your independent-thinker status. What we were dealing with wouldn’t have a name if it was just the two of us ostensibly “walking on eggshells.” While I am in no way insinuating that said friend or anyone else has borderline personality disorder (BPD) (apparently being fearful around someone so as not to upset him or her is one of the things to look for when thinking that someone might have BPD), I am saying that once you adjust your behavior to suit someone else, you need to watch yourself—or, rather, watch that you don’t let your friend’s demands become your very own auto-pilot. Sure, you have a friend who’s a vegetarian so you don’t go to a steak house, but consideration is not the same as accommodation.

Beverly Engel notes that emotional abuse is “when someone is unrelentingly critical of you, always finds fault, and can never be pleased.” What I say is watch out because you may be on your way to being worn down until your estimation of your own worth is no longer near what it was when you so joyfully entered your new friendship.

Perhaps the line is crossed when, instead of having a friendly discussion, you make a mental calculation where the phrase “not upset her” is forefront and then you act accordingly. And that, as I instructed my mother, must not be done. In what universe is having someone to sit uncomfortably next to better than sitting alone, at peace with all of the absurd, irrelevant, inconsequential questions you may ask?

It’s upsetting, isn’t it, that it’s the concerned, caring people who forfeit too much of themselves to not make waves, and think they are, indeed, being considerate. But it’s not—not considerate of yourself. A person should not think that it’s alright to cede the self for or to anyone. And giving a pass just this once is doing no one any good—it will just make it harder next time (and there will be a next time) to stand up for yourself.

Deepak Chopra has noted that “Controlling types can be handled by acting unintimidated. At heart, controlling types fear that they are inadequate, and they defend against their own insecurity by making other people feel insecure and not good enough. Show that you are good enough.” And that, really, is the key: Silence is not golden if you’re holding a hand over your mouth.  

Respect: To Be Given and To Be Expected

The other day I got an email from a counselor at school saying that a student of mine thinks that I am not nice to him. She suggested that I rectify this situation by having a one-on-one conversation with him asap. My response was one of those quickly written emails that we often come to regret, but in this case I have no regret for the quick-write and quick-send. I told her that I did have a tough talk with him that morning because he was supposed to have stayed after school with me a few days earlier to make up some work he missed while on vacation. I had told him that I would stay and wait for him. Not only did he not come, but two days later he still didn’t find it in himself to explain or apologize—and I demanded that he apologize to me, in a rather strong tone and with a mini-lecture thrown in.

There is just no way that I will be reprimanded for not over-coddling a teen’s ego. Seriously, at what point does a child need to stop listening only to his inner whiner and start learning that there are rules of decency that he needs to adhere to?

Another student told his mother that I yell at him. Besides the obvious fact that these kids have no conception of what a real yell is, they seem to equate a tough and forceful tone that is ever so slightly above the normal teacher tone as a yell. But I was having none of it. I told the mother that, yes, I have directed tough words at her son because he seems to think that making accents of different ethnic groups (his own included) is funny and is entertainment for the other immature boys in the class, and because I have forced him to throw out his green gum with which he likes to make bubbles during class.

Maybe I shouldn’t be teaching this age group. A number of teachers and people in the general public have told me that they could never teach freshman, but I enjoy them—up to a point. (Let me state unequivocally that the girls are not only mature, but they are well aware of the immaturity of the boys in their midst, and they are delightful.) At that point (I mean the point at which they are disrespectful and oblivious to some basic societal norms), I become a teacher whose lesson cannot possibly be evaluated by a bubble chart—it’s when I demand that they learn how to act and behave properly. It’s when I forget to modulate my tone and say what I think as if this child were my own child.

At what point do children lose the license to excuse their own bad behavior? And why, honestly, did they ever get that license in the first place?

It could be that I’m tough, as people have said, but I don’t see how expecting children to behave with respect to their elders and each other is tough or beyond a basic norm? Honestly, I’m tired of feeling that I’m doing something wrong when all that I am doing is trying to educate the whole child. Do parents really want their children to keep getting passes for work they don’t do and behavior that is reproachable? Sure, I admit that you can live a successful life even if you don’t understand Shakespeare, but what can you do if you don’t know what the word “courtesy” means?

I fear that the focus on teaching to the test and evaluating teachers based to a great degree on their student’s work will give too much power to children and lessen an understanding that they are to respect their elders and those who are trying to help them. It might come as a surprise to some, but not every child wants or knows how to do well, and kids know how to get back at someone they think has slighted them. A friend of mine teaches at the graduate school level and she has to deal with student evaluations which often read like mini-vendettas because they don’t like the amount of reading she has assigned and because there might not have been a syncing of personalities, not to mention disgruntled students who didn’t get an A.

Backing down and letting their behavior slide is not an option. I’d rather move right along to my Plan B career choice of working with the geriatric crowd than bend the understanding of respect that I was taught by example as a child.

We seem to be looking to other cultures for guidance on how to raise our children. We’re looking to China with Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua, and France with Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman, and a mélange with How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm: And Other Adventures in Parenting (From Argentina to Tanzania and Everywhere in Between) by Mei-Ling Hopgood, but how about we stick to what we were taught as children—or at least unearth some of the key lessons from our overworked minds. It might have been a different time, and yes, it might not have been the best of times, but weren’t there some basic guidelines that were imparted on us and which we have, perhaps, slacked off on imparting to the next generation? Why do we excuse our children from the things that were absolute bottom lines for us? I didn’t even know that you could turn in homework late until I was in graduate school.  

Fellow teachers talk about students who send, via email, requests for them to write letters of recommendation for colleges that are due in a day, and then not even receiving thank you letters from those students when they delayed their weekend grading to write the letters. Expectations, surely, are warped.

An I-whatever has become de rigueur for this generation. How about requiring behavior that reflects an understanding that the world is not all about “I” before the next purchase?

 

Words from some very wise men: "Teach Your Children," by Crosby Stills Nash and Young.

From 8 to 14 back to 10

In August my doctor told me that I need to lower my cholesterol and that I’m the o-word, as in obese. (Snarky but true, she looked to be in the o-category herself, but that’s her problem, not mine.) How’s that for an annual; at least I didn’t hear the c-word, God-forbid, but I felt a bitter mix of disappointment, surprise, and embarrassment at what I had done to myself. I can lay blame on circumstances (and I will) but my mouth and my eating habits and exercise habits are my own.

The toll of the divorce made its mark on my pant’s size. Way back when I had been an 8, then, after the girls it got up to 10, and over the course of so much dissatisfaction I was on the border of the Women’s Department—one more number and I was there.

And even Kenny, the vegetarian, helped me ever so slightly, what with my desire to tantalize him with the creamy mac and cheeses and quiches I could concoct just for him and his need for protein.

But no more. I was a good girl. No butter. No oil. No yolks. No regular ice cream. No potato chips. I told myself—and I believed it—that I had already had enough of those wondrous  home style potato chips and creamy custards any way. And I had frozen fruit desserts. And lots of salads—with only balsamic vinegar drizzled on top. And even on vacation I cut the cheeses and the desserts. A true testament: in Key West I made a slice of Key Lime pie last for two nights.

And I really did join a gym that afternoon—it was not said just to placate a concerned doctor. I don’t go enough, but I make it once a week (except for two weeks ago). I’m even starting to look at myself in the mirror when I get changed.

And it worked. This afternoon I am going to get a pair of size 10 pants because my size 14s are so baggy it looks like the 80s are back and even the size 12s look too mommy jeansy for me. And the cholesterol? The doctor had this to say after my recent blood test: “You have done a good job, keep up the good work.” And I will.

Last year when I was in San Francisco I barely made it up the hills; this year, I made it up and then up some more without ten-minute breaks to observe the breath-taking views.

As the Divine Bette Midler sang: “I Look Good.”

And I feel like myself once again.

Lessons of the Road

Since the summer I have been teaching my younger daughter to drive. She took her first baby-driver steps driving between rows of parking spots in a huge, empty lot. Then she drove around quiet residential neighborhoods until she could confidently turn on the turn signal and steer at the same time, and I wasn’t constantly slamming on my imaginary brakes. But when we went out into the streets of the real road world, I learned more about other people than I did about my daughter’s driving ability.

In the most public of places we act as if we are in the most private of places, revealing far too much of our personalities. We’re not just surreptitiously picking our noses in our cars—on the whole, we’re selfish and mean, with only the occasional glimmer of kindness.

At first, when the 35mph speed limit was beyond her capabilities, she was constantly honked at, tailgated, cut off, and given looks-to-kill. For goodness’ sake, the girl was trying to drive carefully and all she got for that was an endless line of virtual middle fingers. The worst offenders were, no surprise here—everyone. Who made us all the Grand Patrollers of the Road? Are we all emergency room doctors about to give birth?

But worse than arrogance and impatience is the fact that my daughter no longer thinks the people of the world are law-abiding citizens. How many people has she seen break the laws she studied so thoroughly to pass the “written” test. Folks, we’re going through red lights and stop lights as if they are road spam. We speed and cut each other off and race across double yellow lines because, well, because we want to. The impression that I conveyed to my daughter that the world was, on the whole, a fair and decent place has been trampled. She now doubts everything I ever taught her, except to definitely not pick her nose.

Last week, after she had been yielding for quite some time at a busy intersection to no avail, she asked me why people speed up when they see she is trying to get in? What does a mother say to that, except the absolute truth as I have come to see from the passenger seat: People are selfish, they just care about themselves and getting whatever advantage they can, however insignificant. I had thought that the driving lessons would focus on maintaining distance from the car in front of you, always checking your mirrors, and never glancing at the cellphone, but no, this was the reality that presented itself.

But the other day, thank goodness for that day, there was hope that the world I had explained to her might exist on some streets. She was in the middle lane, signaling to get into the right lane. Three cars sped up, because, well, they could, and passed her. And then, at the light, the woman in the car to our right asked if we want to turn into that lane and that it would be okay. I will add that she was a refined-looking, long-retired woman wearing beige suede gloves. Maybe the manners of days by gone aren’t all gone. And just perhaps, after my daughter has experienced what it’s like to be at the receiving end of both possibilities she will elect to drive and live with civility.

What do we get from our behavior? According to the US Census Bureau, in 2009 there were 10.8 million road accidents and 35,900 deaths. We lose property, we lose limbs, we lose livelihoods, we lose people, we lose a sense of community.

And what are we teaching our young? Sure, it’s a pain to wait at a light when no one’s coming. And it’s annoying that you need to drive at the speed limit when you’re such a good driver and you really really need to get where you’re going. Not to mention those tailgating speed demons who force you to move over, for what? Just so you can wait behind them at a light?

When does it stop? When do we decide that all of the rules apply to each of us, all of the time? It’s not just about breaking rules, it’s about breaking the threads that hold a society together—the threads that create a society.

Have we become islands in our little pods?

Teaching about the Holocaust

In the school where I teach, we read Night, Elie Wiesel’s first memoir of the Holocaust. For me, reading Night and having my students learn about the Holocaust amounts to a mission.  Other teachers, though, find it a pain, a bother. They don’t understand all of the terms, which, I guess, means that they don’t want to learn concepts that are alien to them. I’m pretty sure they won’t be excommunicated from any church which they don’t attend if they learn what Shabbos means or what Kabbalah refers to. It seems that they want to stick to analyzing characters in a neat way as opposed to this small plunk of vicious reality that cannot be analyzed for character development.

It is so utterly wrong that the one Jewish member on the team (or the one who identifies as Jewish) is the one who finds true purpose in this unit. After all, do I teach because children need to know how to identify a metaphor, or do I teach because children need the tools to think and express themselves? It is so very wrong that people think, apparently, that since it didn’t happen to their people then they don’t need to relate to it. Or, worse yet, perhaps because it’s too much for them—too depressing, too horrifying, too outside of any comfort zone—they rush through it to fulfill a requirement but no more.

Generally, there is a research component to this unit. I have found it difficult to oversee this project because most kids want to find a single website that will give them answers to the questions they need to consider, yet I, I can’t help it, I want them to take it  more seriously than the means to a grade. So this year I will try a different way to reach inside those teen walls of indifference. This year each student will be assigned an event or place, and then research it and—this is the change—read original source material from people who lived through “their” event. I’m hoping that these personal stories will bridge the gap between doing schoolwork and connecting to history.

At the same time, other teachers have decided that this year they are going to focus on German propaganda. They will focus on how the Nazis led the Germans to follow them, to believe them, to be captivated by their tales of how lovely it is to be us, Aryans, and how hateful it is to be them, the Jews, or anyone who does not look as we say they should or behave as we say they should or believe what we say they should. And that is good, but it feels wrong. Maybe they are right, since our focus is supposed to be on language and that, really, is what we teach. But really, doesn’t this make the students focus on the poor Germans who were manipulated by the evil Nazis. Where in this focus are the victims—the people who were defiled, tortured, shot, gassed by those who believed and those who were too cowardly to not believe? Where is space for the victims of the “mislead”? Will they learn that excuses are more powerful than actions?

I tell myself that any learning and thinking about what happened during the Holocaust is positive; that I should not think that there is anything wrong with their focus. And yet it makes me uncomfortable. Does it come down to these teachers not being Jewish and so not feeling, intrinsically, the honor/importance that they have been given to transmit this lesson to a generation of citizens of the world? Maybe I’m wrong. But it doesn’t feel that way.

How are we to ever get to “never again”—that violent acting out of group hatred or fear—if our teachers can’t put themselves in another person’s shoes, even if those shoes have been preserved in monstrous piles never to be forgotten?

 

Piles of shoes that belonged to prisoners killed in the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Poland, wartime. — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum #0009 

How Personal of a Personal Day

I took a personal day today. I just couldn’t take one more day of the routine. I couldn’t take one more day of everyone before me. I couldn’t do it. I needed some time to not care about anything--everything.

It was, obviously, supposed to be a “me first” day. And it was, when I contemplated it. For the few days leading up to the decision to take this specific day and then for a few days after I set the date and arranged for a sub, it was my day. I thought about where I would go for lunch and what I would buy with the $100 Hanukkah gelt (money) from my mother: shoes or shirt, or even both. And I wondered where I would spend the time before and after those activities. And it was lovely, this leisurely way of thinking. I was anticipating my day off as much as a teacher looks forward to summer vacation.

But then I realized that I need to bring my car in for service and it would be better to do it today than on the weekend. And then I remembered my credit card bill; it was high, not from purchases now hanging in my closet or on me, but from living life and going on vacation during winter break to visit Kenny's mother and my daughter on the other coast. So I decided I could survive without any new things. And the refrigerator, well, I teach on Tuesday nights after a whole day of teaching, so the leftovers had already been finished. Someone would need to make dinner, and since I’m the only cook in the house, it would be me. Why not make something nice, make the delicious, multi-stepped, Maltese squash pie that Kenny’s mother makes? So there was the supermarket, the cooking, and the cleaning up. Oh, and since I had spent the whole weekend providing feedback on essays for seniors, I hadn’t had time to provide feedback on the essays the freshman had written, I needed to get those done—since I already have a backlog of essays to grade this weekend. So instead of reading, writing or staring into space while I waited for my car to get fixed, I worked.

Still, I managed to get in lunch at a Mexican restaurant, picked for the frozen margarita that could accompany the meal, and the proximity to the house.

And then I went home and napped for an hour and a half.

And I talked with my older daughter out in LA, and my mother in Florida, and I took Poops for a walk in the rain. And I just finished reading a book.

I guess it was as personal a day as I could have.

I’m already anticipating taking another one in March; it’s a month with no days off--too much routine. Personal day. If this is how personal it can be, I say it’s worth it: the combination of me and them, the inability to only tend to myself, or, perhaps, that is utterly what has come to be personal for me.

My Father

My father died on December 21st two years ago.

Since that time the unbelievable happened: we continued to live. It’s not hard to recall the intense pain and loss we experienced—experience. At the time it seemed inconceivable that life could continue when he was no longer with us. How is it that we are here and he is not? The power of that thought was overwhelming and guilt-inducing.

But, life does go on. Millennia of loss with life going on. That joining in with generations of mourners was what made me understand that I, too, can go on.  

I still have the seven-day Yahrzeit candle that was lit when we sat shiva for him. I still have a voice mail message from him—from two months before his death, days before he found out that he was dying of esophageal cancer. And I still have an intense feeling of missing an important component in my life. That’s what comes, I guess, from his having been such a kind, loving man—to his family and everyone he knew. A quiet redhead.

Maybe this sense of him that does not leave me nor can it leave me is the stuff of which ghosts are created. An image of the person—physical and internal—who passed, who was loved and whose loss is always present.

My mother said that he spoke to her in their bedroom after he died.

Death. A part of life. It would be nice if it weren’t so. Thank goodness for internal flashbacks and the recollection of images and words and gestures and even sense of person from days of fullness. Thank goodness, indeed, for my father having been my father.

Rape: The Scourge of Our Time

I was all fired up the other day to write about the heinous way women are treated in Afghanistan; the brutal absurdity of imprisoning women for being raped and of forcing them to marry the men who raped them; and how unhealthy it is for a society to give men absolute power over women. I was going to write about how conflicted I am about our leaving Afghanistan: Is it good to leave them to themselves, or is it bad since, obviously, the women aren’t much better off after our ten-year offensive. I even intended to bring in World War II and how we didn’t leave Europe, another scene of debilitatingly horrific acts of violence, until we had defeated Hitler and the evil of his regime.

Then my partner said that I should think about how many women in the military are raped. “Google ‘rape military.’” Then he mentioned a female soldier who accused a man (working for a contractor) of raping her, and how he got off with barely a slap on the wrist. And her, he said, she was jailed.

He’s right: All the wrongs committed against women cannot be dropped on the laps of Afghani men. We can’t just pooh-pooh the men of Afghanistan who conceal women behind burkas and walls, and who torch their schools, and rape them with bestial impunity, because the rest of the world doesn’t exactly present a shining example of gentlemanly behavior.

Women in the Congo, Bosnia, Kuwait, Sudan, Sri Lanka, and Rwanda have been raped as a course of war, as they have been during other conflicts, and throughout history. Reports of Libyan soldiers raping citizens have surfaced, as have sexual assaults by Egyptian police against demonstrators.

I googled “us military rape statistics,” and 2,230,000 results came up. That’s a lot of stories about men in the military who rape, and women (in the military and civilians) who have been raped by our representatives.

And here in the US, where we attempt to look down on their mistreatment of their women, well, we actually have a term for when a man doesn’t get that “no means no.” Date rape is not quite akin to opening a door for a woman. And the acceptance of the twisted logic of “she asked for it” by wearing a dress that was too tight or too revealing, or by being out too late, or by drinking too much is a psychic rape of all women. Women do not ask to be violated. No, Americans are not beacons in any one’s night.

People say that in Afghanistan it is an expression of their culture. Yeah, sure. Men take every right from a woman except the right to inhale and exhale and we let “culture” cover for that constant humiliation and exercise of power. Then what is it here? Can someone state as truth that rape is a reflection of our culture because we so degrade women by objectifying and sexualizing them? Have we let the deviants define us?

Is the genesis of these rapes by Afghani men, African rebels, European fighters, and American soldiers the same? Is the problem a universal acceptance of “boys will be boys”? Have we conceded the stage to the bullies?

Googling “rape” brings up 206,000,000 results. No, we cannot breathe a sigh of relief that at least we don’t live there—because we do. Women can be strong, but not as strong as a 200 lb. man with societal support (for what else is indifference?) on his side.

Is rape the scourge of our time? We have defeated illnesses, now we must defeat a sickness.

A person who rapes is sick in the crudest sense of the word. And it is unhealthy to ignore a sickness in our midst. Why is it that we arrest prostitutes and not Johns? Why are we always protecting the men? Why are we protecting those who need no protection?

Maybe we women are being forced back to being the weaker sex because society is unable or unwilling to protecting us. What does that say about American culture?

“I Like Your Necklace”

The other day the “compliment clothing instinct” peeked out its pretty head. In the morning, as I walked by her, I blurted out to a student that I liked her ring. I couldn’t help it—it was so big, so obvious, so worthy of compliment; teacher-student relationship be damned—the girl has taste. It was a three-inch silver disc with intricate designs on it: quite the finger shield. A ring to be noticed—and complimented.

Then later when I was walking around the supermarket, a woman who almost walked into me (or did I almost walk into her?) complimented me on my necklace. As I said “thank you,” I reached for my neck to feel which necklace I was wearing. It was the necklace that I bought after my year of wearing no jewelry after father passed away.

And the next day I complimented a colleague on how lovely she looked. And she did the thank you blush and took the back straight-chest out stance.

Even when I tell my daughter, who doesn’t much like my voice or the words that come out of my mouth, how pretty she looks, I get a shy thank you and a tinge of blush to her beautiful cheeks.

Oh, how lovely it is to give and receive. Forget the lists. Forget the stores. Forget the gift cards. Give the gift of a compliment.

Thinking about Sleeping

At night I  go to sleep. In the morning I wake up. Between those two, there are innumerable mini-wake-ups. I go to the bathroom. I come back to bed. Sleep doesn’t overtake me, or perhaps I don’t have the patience to just lay there waiting, as if for a gift. And so I turn on the radio. I listen to news and interview shows from the BBC, which is what the public radio station here plays from midnight to five am (which is a half-hour before my it-really-is-time-to-wake-up time). You would think that I would use my time constructively—clean, knit, read, eat—but I don’t. I lay listening, waiting, hoping for sleep to take me away from learning more about the drama that encompasses so many people’s lives.

There is no night’s sleep for me; it is a series of naps within the night. I wonder what impact this has on me? It’s exhausting thinking that there is always something I could be doing with my time and it’s exhausting always learning new things. And it’s exhausting not getting a stop-to-start sleep because I have always needed a full night’s sleep. I have always been envious of those “I just need a few hours of sleep” people.

It’s not even that I have concerns and stresses and anxieties that are keeping me turning from side to side to side to back to side looking for the magic position in the night. Sure, I had plenty of drama a few years ago, and that may be what has permanently disabled my sleepscape, but I don’t now. Now I have a life that flows as a backyard stream, it’s touched and touching, and keeps on going, inevitably, around rocks and down little rapids, and even calms in the pools that develop behind fallen branches before the rush—onward, forward. 

So why can’t I sleep? Maybe I’m never tired enough? Maybe I should succumb to the quiet of my mind rather than seek company in the night. Am I getting too many words in my life? Since I teach, I’m talking all day long. And when I’m not talking, I’m reading and writing lessons, and grading. And when I’m not so involved, I’m listening to radio, listening to talk radio or music where my focus is always on the lyrics. And when I finally have enough, I watch TV, but my partner and I always discuss and debate the drama of the cooking or house hunting show we are watching. So there are always words percolating; there are always thoughts developing and responses formulating. Is the problem, not the lack of bladder control, but the lack of thought control? Does my mind really need to be still, or as still as I can make it, to find the atmosphere I need in order to sleep from ten to five-thirty? Maybe I should practice some form of meditation in bed—force my mind into the off position.

Yes, I think I will try that. I will give myself “me time” in bed. (And no, I don’t mean that kind of me time.) Is the problem that I don’t give myself time for me? Or is it that those words are always directed outward or are from beyond the self.  They come in invited, surely, but has it become too much of an invasion rather than an interaction, or maybe the notion of continual interaction is too much for me. Where am I, my core, if I am always focused on beyond the cells of self? Have I given myself up to constantly joining and creating a flow of ideas and thoughts rather than occasionally casting myself onto a smooth, sun-dried rock from where I can be still and meaningful because I simply am?

Bask, I need to bask in bed. Bask to the beauty of being, whatever that means intuitively because I will not seek to analyze those moments. In the still small moments of night, I will be as dark matter, there and not there.

Thanksgiving 2011

It’s Thanksgiving, but we’re having pizza and beer for dinner. Tomorrow we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving. Do I need to be surrounded by family to prove that I have what to be thankful for? And do I have to serve the requisite main course and sides and desserts (okay, the apple pie is ready for consumption tonight) and conversation-round-the-table about what we’re thankful for to make this a thankful day for me?

My boyfriend/partner is getting the pizzas. It will take him at least an hour at the frozen pizza section in the supermarket to pick out just the right pizzas. Luckily they close early today. On pizza and beer Fridays we always have two frozen pizzas: one veggie and one mucho cheese-o. But he will take his time thinking about which pizzas I would prefer tonight. The decision will be made by him making experienced-based assumptions about my taste buds today, not definites about himself.

It is the two of us, and Poops, everyone else is in absentia.

My older daughter is at college on the other coast. But the ticket cost is not the reason why she won’t be here. No, she’s there celebrating with her boyfriend and friends. And I am thankful and grateful that she has found a place where she is happy and people with whom she finds herself blossoming. I’ll never forget the mother stomach-lump that developed in an instant when her first grade teacher told me that she never smiles in class. And she has always been a solemn child. The curse of the bookworm, perhaps? Her happiness, from whatever distance, is to rejoice in.

And my younger daughter. Well, it’s her fault that we’re having Turkey Day tomorrow and not today. A friend invited her to celebrate Thanksgiving with her family. Maybe they feel sorry for her that we’re divorced and her father is not around and that it’s just Kenny and me here on this family celebration day, or maybe they are thankful that their daughter has such a wonderful friend. I decided that Thanksgiving should be more about her happiness and gratitude to two women and the homes they make and make her feel comfortable in rather than sticking to the calendar (besides, we don’t watch football and we don’t Black Friday shop), so she’s with her friend’s family today and us tomorrow.

And my mother down in retirementland is going to the movies and then for a non-turkey dinner with a couple that doesn’t make her feel like the lonely widow. The holidays really are the hardest for her; there doesn’t seem to be a before and after, just a before, with my father—and the way it should be, not this being alone business.

My brother. A bit of aggravation there just to make sure that the subterranean theme of how families can be dangerous to one’s health is maintained even if Thanksgiving is not; he did not invite us to his family’s Thanksgiving Day repast. Granted, they’re five hours away, but I used to do the drive, even when it took nine hours in only-stop traffic. That is until I decided one year that I’ll wait for my invitation rather than invite myself. So here I sit, at home and not in Thanksgiving Day traffic since the invite never came.

Thanksgiving. Yes, I’m thankful that the people in my life seem happy and well-adjusted and purposeful. And me, I’m happy that I’m not stressed about cooking, because what kind of pressure can I have doing it a day late?

And I’m also thankful that at 50 (or 49 twice in a row) I feel healthy, I feel wise, I feel pretty, and I feel.

Happiness and Thanks to You All!

Teaching to the Test

When I started teaching a few years ago I didn’t understand what the veteran teachers meant when they said that things had changed, that the joy of teaching had left when the focus on testing and data came in thanks to No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Now I know. And it’s not making me a happy teacher, parent or citizen.

For quite a while all was well, I was teaching the things that were required of me, and they made sense, there’s no question about that, and I developed creative lessons that I thought encouraged my students to think, and to understand the material and the world we live in. And all seemed well. I thought I was helping send young men and women out into the world who had respect for punctuation and the thesaurus, and who thought that books were not just for nerds and teachers.

Hoops were put in front of us, and we leaped (or is it leapt) through them. Time was spent filling out charts about test scores and types of assessments given rather than lesson planning or grading. But that was okay, it wasn’t too onerous.  Yet.

But now, now I fear that the times have a’ changed.

Now the value of my teaching (and my value itself since this will be linked to my job evaluation) will be measured in test results. It’s not just talk; it will be the reality, my reality. So you tell me, do I spend time talking about racism and have my students write about what it feels like to have experienced or observed prejudice, or do I do an extra handout to ensure that every student in my class knows all the rules of the comma so that their grades on assessments are high enough to indicate that I’m a highly effective teacher? Do I skip discussing suicide when we read Romeo and Juliet so that we can perfect our ability to spot a metaphor when we read one?

Somewhere someone said something about putting the ills or the failings of society on teachers. That wasn’t far off. How can you expect us to overcome indifference at home and personal—for whatever reason? And how do we overcome exhaustion and hunger and stress? Another handout on semi-colons won’t do it. And learning difficulties, they cannot be overcome with a seat in the front and a large-print handout. And language difficulties? How do you bridge the language gap in a child who has been in this country for only a few years? Is it fair to expect all students to know English like a native speaker ASAP so they can pass the test and you can show that you’re an effective teacher? And yet I am not even minimally instructed how to teach non-native speakers. And don’t tell the native speakers that we just might need to s  l  o  w   d  o  w  n  until we all understand at the same level.  

I’m not saying that effectively teaching my subject is not my job and my mission, but for goodness’ sake, why judge what I do through standards that don’t reach what needs to be done—and what is the true purpose of education, which is to educate and not just to instruct.

And, you know, not every kid will click with and learn from every teacher. And not every kid gets every subject. And that shouldn’t mean that I’m a bad teacher. It just means that you can’t test away personality. Yes, sure, there are all sorts of ways to differentiate learning and scaffold learning and teach it different ways with different tools, but, honestly, not everyone is good at everything. I remember reading somewhere about, I’m pretty sure it was Dr. Seuss, giving advice to parents. He said that he was glad when he got out of school because he no longer needed to spend time on things he wasn’t good at, and that he could finally focus on only those things he wanted to focus on—and that he was good at.

Tests. What about kids who are defiant? They know that how they do on most of these “big” tests does not reflect on them, but rather on their teacher and school. And what about kids who don’t test well? And what about—what about teaching with passion and learning with passion?

And what about parents? Aren’t they first and foremost responsible for their children and the nurturing of their children and encouraging their children and teaching them to value and respect themselves and their future by going to school and doing well? The other day in the New York Times Tom Friedman noted that, “There’s no question that a great teacher can make a huge difference in a student’s achievement, and we need to recruit, train and reward more such teachers. But here’s what some new studies are also showing: We need better parents. Parents more focused on their children’s education can also make a huge difference in a student’s achievement.” (The study he referred to is from the Program for International Student Assessment, PISA, conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.) Seems amazing that this counts as news. Or is it more of the ole “buck doesn’t stop here” idea, where blame is always placed on someone else.

I send out information on students’ progress and grades to their parents on a regular basis. Except for the one mother whose daughter has an A and always thanks me for letting her know how her daughter is doing (which I appreciate so very much), I only hear from a couple of parents. And generally, it’s to find fault with me. Darling said that he handed in the assignment, but you didn’t mark it. Can Sweetheart hand in the work late? Honeybun said that you told him that he can’t hand in the work. Sweetness said that she didn’t do the work because the instructions weren’t clear. Unfortunately, all too rare is the, “Thanks for letting me know. I will talk to him about doing his work.” That really would help my work.

And maybe, just maybe, people at the top of the education chain need to realize that they are not the only ones who want the best for our students. After all, we spend our days with kids and we spend far too much out-of-class time thinking about our students and how to reach them. Is it fair to say that only a test can show what we bring to the desk?

What did I teach today?

Amongst the “things” that I taught, I hope that I also modeled what it is to be an effective speaker and listener, to be an expert in my subject, to be compassionate, to be firm, and to be analytical.

No child should be left behind, that’s for sure. But this reliance on the test effectively insults and demeans teachers and students, alike, by putting all learning down to a few circles on a piece of paper.

Pick the most appropriate response. Education is primarily the responsibility of: a. Administrators; b. Bureaucrats; c. Parents; d. Students; e. Teachers

Oh, and no, you cannot pick more than one response; and no, you cannot explain your answer. But you do have as much time as you need.