I hate fundraising!

I did not go into sales for a reason. I think the current method for funding schools is insufficient, but I do not encourage my students to become peddlers or money-raisers of any variety. Teenagers have more important things to do than beg for money to give to their school, particularly one that is not doing such a great job. There's not enough paper! Is this a student problem? A teacher problem? Should it be?

Reflections on my current brood

Begin here: My students are...

It's frightening how many ways I could finish that statement this time around. This year's bunch is the most recalcitrant group of smart pseudo-scholars I've met yet. That's saying not much really as this is only the second bunch of tenth graders I've taught, but I am surprised at the amount of cajoling, threatening, and pushing that it's taken to get this bunch moving. And still, as we approach the week in which we conference and counsel students and parents about entrance into the oh-so prestigious IB program, I have qualms about many of them. I don't like this part. I try to back up, knowing that I have little at stake and the family we're talking with feels like it's life-changing. For many, I expect it is. Even if a kid has done poorly in my class, I won't be the one to say he or she can't be a part of the program. I'll report the student's performance as objectively as I can; the grades tell most of the story, but I won't make a recommendation. I act like a politician and say something vague; I vote present. Who am I to say they won't get their heads together in the next six months? It could happen. I recall how incensed I was (two angry letters and a phone call) when a counselor looked at my genius son's pitiful GPA in the beginning of the ninth grade and said, "Well, you know college is out of the question." Maybe I needed a son like that to make me fully aware that grades don't tell the whole story.

And thank heaven that I don't have to measure my teaching by the FCAT! As grateful as I am that my students do extremely well on standardized tests, it makes seeing growth even more difficult. Just now I am seeing some progress with these kids, but before the test they were all just playing the game. To me, playing the school game means doing every assignment with little engagement or enthusiasm and then anxiously tending your grade in each class. These kids say things out of the blue like, "You wouldn't happen to remember my grade in your class, would you?" Nearly every assignment discussion is focused on quantity, how many words, how many sources, how many points. Of course, they focus mostly on the points. AAUUUURRGGH!

The progress that I'm seeing coincides with our long journey westward with the Joads. Yes, I lead/push/bribe/drag them through The Grapes of Wrath. Many are reading with interest, many are reading out of duty, but it seems even the few who have not been reading may be doing so now. On the discussion board I've asked them to find their own connection to the novel and it's great to finally see them encouraging each other to read and to begin seeing the novel with different eyes. And we're not even to California yet.

Grades are due Monday. As usual I have more to grade than I can do, but that is because I make them write so much. Aren't they lucky? I wish I had had a teacher like me.

I'm not "that kind" of English teacher,

but I find this hilarious. Okay, maybe hilarious is stretching it a bit, but funny.

Frailty and Doubt

Now this isn't going to be a whining rant, I hope, but I can't get this stuff out of my head, so I might as well write it.

I have been discovering the wonders of yoga. I've attended a few sessions at a studio close by and truly enjoy it. Yes, I said it, it's exercise I really enjoy. That hasn't been true since I discovered racquetball, which I no longer play as I blew my ankle out with quick stops and lateral motion. When the orthopedic surgeon put it back together he said racquetball was no longer for me. It was a crushing blow.

Today, after three sessions of yoga, my knee is injured. I hate a pain I can't pinpoint, diagnose, and preferably treat. Despite my best efforts at treatment after last night's session, I'm still walking like I'm about eighty years old today. Reading websites about knee injuries didn't make it feel a bit better. More ice, heat, elevation, etc. are in store for later today. And yes, I'd like a small miracle so that the pain is gone tomorrow before I go back to the yoga studio. So, I'm focusing on body mechanics, keeping that knee lined up and right over the ankle when walking or bending. etc. Remember the days when such concerns were non-existent? I do. I miss them. I am not afraid of the passing of time and am enjoying some of the benefits that come with age. But the continuing degeneration of the body and all the pain, incovenience, etc., that go along with it are not welcome. Not at all!

Now, the doubt. I love my job as a teacher and most of the time I think I'm pretty good at it. Today I am giving an assessment on Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. I don't really like giving tests, but the role requires it. But it's odd that even after working together since August, my students have a hard time understanding exactly what it is I want them to demonstrate. At least, it seems that way today. When my best students are reading the questions with a look of total confusion, it worries me. Several students came into the classroom quizzing each other on the minor details of the text, character's last names, who did what job, etc. as if I might ask them about that. Come on! As if knowing the tiny details of a story represents understanding! And these kids are "advanced"-- "gifted" even. I think many of them would love it if there was simply a long list of details to memorize about each text. Wouldn't that be fun? No. And it wouldn't help them a bit in future studies, either. The other thing I can't seem to get right is the length of an assessment. I had hoped the test I wrote might take about 2/3 of the class period, leaving me with a few minutes to give background on the next text. But no, I wrote a test that most kids need every one of our fifty minutes to complete. Curses, foiled again!

These two issues aren't really related, but I can tie them together pretty easily when I put on my personal coach hat--the yoga is helping with this. The voice inside my head should be saying, "Be patient. It's good you're still learning. Next time will be better." I can say it, but can I make it true?

Okay, it was a rat.

Because our lot borders on a little scrap of unusable swampy land, and because we have a cat who likes to hunt, we've had more than our share of critters in the house. This does not mean that I am used to it. There have been a couple of squirrels--one who lived, birds and evidence of their deaths too many to count, and, as much as I hate to admit it, a few rodents. I prefer to think of them as field mice. I've been lucky enough to only see one, two, if you count the subject of this post.

Denial is one of my favorite coping mechanisms, I know it's not healthy, but it works for me. And names matter, right? So, when my daughter asked the other night, "Is there any chance there is a rat living under my dresser?" D and I responded that the chance was very small, but a chance all the same. Of course, I knew it couldn't be a rat, maybe a cute little mouse.

She was going through clothes and giving things away, and found its turditude in a drawer. A thorough search by her dad ensued as she and I cowered and tried not to squeal. Not one to face the task alone, D rallied the troops, gathering our two mini schnauzers and the killa cat and closing us all into her room. Ever the delegator, when he came upon the intruder, he tossed the cat in next to it. She came out in a flash and soon all the four-leggeds were lined up at the door; I was ready to get out, too.

Believe it or not, D did not feel the same urgency in dealing with the problem as M and I thought he should. "I'll take care of it tomorrow. He's not going anywhere tonight." Luckily, this turned out to be correct. The next day, true to his word, D consulted with the guy at Lowe's, bought a trap, set it, removed all of the dresser drawers, covered the front of it with a large metal sign that said ROAD CLOSED. If only the rodent could read. He reported this arrangement via cell-phone on his way out, along with the fact that he'd managed to jam its tail in a drawer in the process. He had grabbed the two inch end of the tail with pliers, hoping that the critter was still attached, but the wounded mouse had skittered away.

That evening, M came to me with "I think the rat is out of the dresser."

"What makes you think so?"

"The cat's interested in an area behind the desk and Major keeps cruising through the house with his nose to the ground. And I'm not positive, but I may have seen something move in my peripheral vision."

"No, it can't get out of there." What can I say? Denial is my friend.

I kept my door closed and hoped my dear reliable husband, or M's reliable and young (read, thinks he's invincible) fiancé would be along soon to take care of the, um, problem.

Forty minutes later and I was face to whisker with this thing in the kitchen. He had the audacity to be sitting on the kitchen counter! I alerted M, "I see him! I see him! He's right here. I see him." My shouting confused him a bit and he took refuge behind the can opener. She sent out the emergency call to the fiancé. We could hear the mild exasperation in his voice as he responded to our shouted cries. "Okay, I'll get him, be there in a few minutes."

I spent every second of those few minutes with the flashlight tuned on the small visible patch of gray fur. Of course the light did nothing, but it might have made him be still and it made me feel I had him trapped. It's related to that denial thing, don't you think?

My future son-in-law is ingenious and brave, too. He went after the rodent with a basket and an oven mitt. Unfortunately, the little guy evaded him and ran another lap around the family room before ending up in the foyer closet. J created barricades and and settled in to find the vermin.
Finally he trapped it into the corner made by the open door. "Bring me a box with a mouse-sized hole and a ruler" he requested with MacGyver-like cool. Soon the critter was turned loose into the woods, experiencing the happiest day of his life except for the hurt tail. We were left to praise J and marvel at the adrenaline rush that a mouse, I mean, rat chase creates.

The reporter in me knows it truly was a rat, even though I hate to be wrong and can't stand the sound of it. The fiction writer says it was a field mouse, albeit a large one, with a long tail.

Zero days in a row

Guess you have to have more than one day together to make any kind of a row. Come to think of it, you'd have to have at least three as two would be a pair.

Baseball is on again and that's good. Cubs versus White Sox in exhibition--Sox won.

Facebook is amazing and has brought me a long lost friend. I have a story to tell about a nature adventure indoors, but no energy to tell it tonight.

How many days in a row?

I'm inspired by a fellow blogger and challenge myself to an entry a day for the remainder of March. Here's a start--perhaps of something reasonably good.

Tomorrow I give the FCAT test to a small group of students. High-stakes testing, I hate it. The students I'll test are not likely to do well, so it's my job to encourage--even cheerlead a bit. I bought snacks; I know the drill. I still hate the whole idea of it. Last week another teacher at our school told the juniors (who are retaking the test) they should take the test "as if your life depended on it---because it does." Just what kids who've failed the test already need to hear, right? That's simply too high a stake! Dum, da, dum, da DUM! Your life?! Not even close! Don't pass this time? There is another time. Chances will come again and again. The quality of the test iteself is questionable; that's the nicest word I can think for it. Students may score a 15 on the ACT reading to substitute for the FCAT score. They may take the test as many times as they like. The messages they should be hearing are much simpler. There are many roads to every goal. Some obstacles are arbitrary, but we overcome them anyway. You can do this. You will do this. Not, never--you better do this. Seems to me that no message makes a passive-aggressive teenager want to perform less. But what do I know? I'm just a teacher.