But why must we punctuate?

Don't worry, this is not a crazy English teacher rant about using correct punctuation. Quite the contrary, it's a near rant about the perception of absolutism in the rules. I could go on and on about the uselessness of many kinds of rules, but I'll limit myself to a few words about the dots, curves, lines and combinations of these we call punctuation. I hate it. I don't always do it right. I can't remember half the rules and generally allow the voice in my head to do the work. "Learn the rules so you can break them"--that's what I heard and absorbed as a teenager reading postmodern stuff like Kesey's Garage Sale , alongside modern works like ee cummings, Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, etc. So, while not totally ignorant of the rules, I give myself liberty to ignore them or follow them as I choose, at least enough to make meaning. Of course, I do strive to teach the right stuff to the kids. And because it is a complex system, some of my more left-brained students take great delight in knowing the rules and love to catch me in an error. What a rambling intro--let me get to it.
Each Friday at lunch time a group of my students from last year gather in my classroom for discussion. It's student-led on a variety of topics, often spiritual in nature. The kids came to me to propose the idea after a lesson on religion in one of their classes. The group varies in number but we have quite a few Christian kids, one Islamic girl, and a handful of professed atheists. Mind you, these kids are turning seventeen this year, so they are exploring beliefs with interest. But I'm off-track again. Yesterday we looked at the MSNBC Week in Pictures. They insisted I send # 13 of fighting squirrels to another teacher, so I composed the e-mail with their help and attached a screen shot of the picture, feeling like I was committing a minor crime in front of them, but that's yet another post. Anyway, we must have spent seven minutes discussing the appropriateness of a colon before the series of their names. It was lighthearted and fun, and fueled by a smart boy's need to be right (when he was wrong). Now, I'm all for using the right punctuation, because it does create meaning, but I'm not keen on worrying or arguing over it. At least, not today. And when our conversation flowed from a first hand account of the celebration of Eid-ul-Adha, to fighting squirrels, to the rules on colons and commas, I marveled again at the lovely, random nature of learning, and the small tyranny of punctuation.

What I want to teach this year

A wise principal once told her faculty, "Be sure you know now the big things you want them to really know at the end of the year." Now, of course there are much more sophisticated words for this, (essential questions, key concepts, etc.,) but when I start to feel overwhelmed looking at the list of standards, or considering the additions to the crowded list of authors and works, I think about that principal and the beautiful school she created using the simple concepts of trust, respect, and excellence, and I trim the list of what I'd like to impart. So here's my rough draft.

I want my students to:

• appreciate literature in a personal way, to engage and connect with texts in a way that honors their own interpretation.
• feel comfortable with the conventions of academic discourse, from questions of style to basic rules of the MLA, APA, etc. but also be able to write for a variety of readers.
  
• to write with fluency and eagerness, to feel the pressure of having something to say and a desire to say it in writing both clearly and beautifully.
• to develop and enjoy our innate love of language--I'd put this one first, because it's why I do what I do, but I'd rather it be my strong finish.

All the blah, blah, blah I have on my "Course Information" sheet like preparing them for the IB program and beyond, and increasing their competency in reading, writing, speaking and listening are true, but written for a parental audience. I might share this list in class and on Blackboard, but it's mostly for me.

What I taught last year

I'm in the middle of preparing for new students and a new year, but two student comments from last year keep surfacing in my mind. I don't know if I can top these two, especially since I won't have any standard English classes this year. When asked what they had learned in my class, one young man said, "I learned the world is much bigger than I ever knew before." This is the result of viewing and discussing MSNBC Week in Pictures, a Friday habit I can't seem to break. The other comment feeds my soul: "I learned reading is a hobby, not a chore." I don't know if I can improve on that, especially with the "Pre-IB" students, but I'm out to try. Tomorrow I'll meet a few of my students because of orientation. It's not too well attended since my students are sophomores, hence much too cool for this optional exercise. Over-achievers and those with hovering parents will be present. Ready or not--wow--look at that, I'm ready!

Stick me, please!

Today I bared my ass to two strange men and am already grateful. Of course, the men were properly trained and licensed, one by the AMA. Dr. Ash inserted a series of needles into the dura of my spine at L4 and L5 to inject a solution of steroid, anesthetic and saline. The goal is relief from the pain in my back and leg I've been living with in varying degrees for a long, long, time, the last six weeks being the most severe. It's been a strange summer. I've been on pain pills and managing my symptoms with some success, but I've hit a new level of inactivity to do it. And the pills (Vicodin) make me feel so odd, a wave of euphoria and floatiness and then a strange flat blankness. Once I remember thinking "This is what it's like to be really stupid." Then I found myself contemplating my own death and how folks would fare without me. Not my standard subjects at all. I miss my self when I'm on pain pills. I'm optimistic that these injections will truly bring a cure--two more sets, two weeks apart. The next step--many steps, many little steps-- is to get moving again. So little time before the lovely treadmill that is school cranks up again. Ready for the fun, fellow teachers out there? I'm more prepared than this time last year, but as the summer's been truly off time, I have much to do.

Transitions

It's done. Another year of lessons and grading. Another year of getting up early and going to bed knowing there is still work to do. Not really a year, of course. 196 days. It always seems like it went quickly in hindsight. It always crawls in March, and April begins the push as the end comes in sight in my planning. May begins with a feeling that I can't fit it all in and usually some adjustment so we don't go crazy in the final weeks. Then there the push at the end which is part joy, part duty, and part adrenaline push. Then the last line on the sign out sheet is initialed, and it's done. Over. Stop. Take. A break.

D. and I passed a sign for a bereavement group and he joked that I was in mourning for the closing of school, but that's pure overstatement. But there is a strange disquietude that impedes summer joy, though it doesn't totally squelch it.

So I move from having my day governed by bells and papers to a stretch of days (66) with few governing forces. I should be thrilled, exuberant even, but I am simply thoughtful and tired.

Literary links or Why I love/hate politics

I vacillate between watching too much politics and watching none at all. Here's a new take on the current battle that helps me see why I can't help but love it sometimes--some great stories are being played out for us.

The Bard made the press with another one of my favorites this week, Frank Deford, whose alter-ego the sports curmudgeon gave Roger Clemens a lifetime Gertrude award.

Next post: Why I love baseball--I'm considering it.

This blog not yet abandoned

Found this odd thing today and haven't even read it thoroughly yet. I scanned in with enough attention to think it's worth my time. More later.

Early mornings and old westerns

I like to get up early. I don't always like going to work early, but getting up early is becoming a habit. I like creeping around the dark house and settling in for a time of reading, grading, coffee sipping, etc. This morning I've got company. I finished making my vocab quiz in record time. Surprise! My man is up as well and watching a 1967 Civil War/western, replete with heroes, gun battles, and that annoying orchestral soundtrack that wants to be sure you know who the good guys are and when something's going to happen. George Hamilton looked like a mannequin when he was young and Max Baer was his craziest Jethro as a Confederate soldier tracking "blue-bellies" in the old west. Oh wait, he just took one in the belly, oh no, looks like the girl heads back to town to become a hooker. Music up, cut to sunset, credits--ah, at least it's over. It actually had a decent script, but the triteness, the heavy reliance on movie tradition, the pure oldness of it makes it a surreal wake-up on a Friday morning. Hope your day is off to a good start, too.

What's wrong with fiction?

Why in the world couldn't this young lady have simply written an excellent novel? More later on this.

A Valentine Reading Day

It was fun to start today's classes with one of my favorite love poems: Falling in love is like owning a dog It's Thursday so it's reading day in my classroom. My IB kids seem to love it. They are involved in their books and look forward to having time to read them. Some find precious little time outside the classroom to read. They swear to me that they're so overscheduled that they spend zero time on TV, MySpace, and other time-wasting pursuits. How sad. I know their lives are busy, but it bothers me to think about being a kid with zero time to yourself. I know my life was an exception in many ways, but I remember my high school years as a time when I felt like I ordered my own existence for the most part. Certainly school took a big chunk of my time, and I did my share of homework (mostly in Trigonometry), but I also had time for the beach, tons of reading, walks in the woods, even some dating and a social life. I always thought I grew up kind of fast, but now I see that the drudgery of being an adult, being overscheduled, having a stack of responsibilities, etc, has been introduced to kids much earlier than when I was young.
Today most of them are reading Of Mice and Men, the text we're studying in class right now. Next week we'll watch the movie which makes for an easy four-day week for me. Can I begin looking forward to the weekend already?
It's birthday week for me; I keep expanding the celebration. Enjoy all the love in your life today!

Another Friday

It's happened again! We check another week off the list and move into the weekend. Never mind that I'll be burning up my whole Saturday with hurry-up-and-wait at a debate tournament--sounds like fun, but the reality bites. Never mind that I must make family visits on Sunday. Never mind that the stack of grading I'm accumulating is several inches high now. Never mind that grades must be up-to-date on Monday afternoon for interims. I've got my "Be Here Now" attitude on and contentment prevails. If James Taylor is right and the secret of life is enjoying the passing of time, then today it feels like I've mastered the secret. Tomorrow? Who knows?

It's about reading and angels

This piece by Garrison Keillor, a voice who sounds like an old friend, shatters my cynicism, if only for a little while. Thanks to Swift and Change Able for this one.

Bless their hearts

In case you didn't know, the title is southern code for "these folks are clueless." So I direct the phrase both at the well-meaning guidance counselor who sent us all the article containing the following, and at the kids who really do need us to teach them this stuff; it's appalling how many do. Here's what I should be teaching along with reading, writing, vocabulary and literature:

• having stable relationships with peers
• possessing well-developed problem solving skills
• considering realistic future plans
• having a positive sense of being able to achieve and deal effectively with tasks
• experiencing success in one or more areas of their life
• being able to effectively communicate
• possessing a strong attachment with at least one adult
• acceptance of responsibility for themselves and their behavior

I do like to think I make a small dent in the two I've put in red, but the others they'll have to pick up along the way. If some of it happens in my class, (maybe that fourth bullet point), that's great. Just please don't make me the object of a strong attachment. And I remember a long, ridiculous, conversation with a tearful parent when she believed I'd dashed her child's confidence forever when I suggested he might need to study more if he expected to get into an Ivy League school, so I'm not big on helping kids make realistic plans.

I had a little laugh when I read the list during school today. It was nothing like the laugh I had reading the standards for a sixth grade history class I once was preparing to teach that began "The student will understand history from the beginning of time to the Renaissance." Who wrote that? The state education brainiacs, of course. Nevertheless, I did save this list to look at and share as I knew the teachers in our blog circle might enjoy it. Which ones would you say your teaching style hits?

Several other bloggable moments happened today, but there are so many papers to grade, I must do a few before my energy is totally gone.

Early OCD or the numbers are killing me

Those who know me would say I am not obsessive about anything. Some might even say I could use a bit of compulsion to fuel more action, but in any case, here's a chain of thoughts that has begun to feel like mild mental illness. It started innocently enough with a fascination with statistics and a willingness to analyze them. This is relatively new for this language lover; if I had known how much I would come to love numbers, I would have worked harder in math class. Perhaps around the time of the big fuss over America being over 300 million, the idea of repetitions, or more specifically, simultaneous activities, began to occupy my thoughts. When turning the key in the ignition of my car, I would think "How many other people are turning the key in the ignition at this very second?" The instances of this can be infinite. As I turn off my alarm, the thought of tens of thousands of beeps (more?) being silenced by sleepy people wakes me. As warm water courses over my hands before lunch I can't help thinking, "How many others are washing their hands?" I sometimes intentionally imagine several others in the act, but my brain is limited, a point this exercise reminds me over and over, and I move on to other things. But the count, or the concept of this number of simultaneous activities that cannot be counted arrives repeatedly. It comes at me at more intimate moments as well, but I'll let you imagine those.

And it's more than my activities that are multiple, common acts. In the mall food court a young mother plays peek-a-boo with her baby and I contemplate the scope of peek-a-boo. How many games played at this minute? How many throughout time? Something trivial takes on odd importance. Yesterday, in a thrift store, (where a brochure told me a woman is raped every 46 seconds--how do they know that?) the game took a turn as I looked around for my friend and found not one, but three other women in the store of about the same age, hair, build, dress, etc. How many women are there that fit my friend's description? As much as I have contemplated simultaneous activities, I hadn't thought much about duplication in appearance although, of course, it's everywhere.

The worst part about it is the anxiety it provokes. Okay, there are many, many people in the world and our experiences bear strong similarities. So what? How does this change my life? I don't think I'm over-invested in my own uniqueness, although our society seems to force us to focus on being distinctive, being different, even while fitting in. Do people in Japan have this problem? What exactly is the problem? Am I simply freaked out by the number of people in the world? Is this an identity issue? I truly don't mind my own insignificance, like a sky full of stars I find it comforting in some ways. Is it that the numbers are too big for me to conceptualize while I have a need to do so? I am pretty good at accepting what I can't understand, Lord knows I've come across plenty that fits into that category.

Once I tried to explain this to a friend and she basically told me I was stupid to give any mental energy to it. Of course, she said it a little nicer, after all, she is a friend. The reason it feels like OCD is because I can't turn it off, but it does feel better to at least see it in words. Is there a use for this concept? If I have to live with it, I'd like to find some value in it.

2008 will be...

So there's talk of resolutions in the air. This annual chatter I sometimes ignore and sometimes engage in. I agree with Cora that it is endearing and refuse to be a total cynic. This year I've been silent if others advertise their resolutions, but this looks like a safe place to low-ball mine, so here goes--I plan to read and write more for my own growth and pleasure. That's it, no numbers, goals, pages--no quantifiable data by which I can be sure I've failed, just a general push in the right direction. I plan to exercise more-this will be easy since I've basically been a potato lately, a sweet potato, but a potato nonetheless. I plan to eat less sweets, another easy one as I've been on a sugar buzz or displaying sugar-seeking behaviors since around Thanksgiving.

I've been on an organizing and cleaning binge here at home and that feels like a good way to begin 2008 to me.

Happy New Year!