Outsiders...Or Fitting Right In?

Our eighth graders read the novel The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. When it was first released in 1967, the book shocked young readers with its violence and lack of accepted family structure. The students at my school love it. They can't put it down until they're done reading it, and they sit on the edges of their seats watching the 1983 movie version that boasts stars-of-the-future like Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, and Diane Lane.

When I first taught the book, years ago, I thought my students would whine and complain...maybe call the fifties setting old-fashioned and boring. Instead, they sat enthralled and pondered romanticized versions of boys who live without parents and who run around the town with knives while smoking cigarettes non-stop.

Fast forward to last week. Another teacher asked me if I'd seen the YouTube video of a former student fighting in the middle of the street in her neighborhood. I couldn't believe such a thing was possible - that a student fight was recorded and placed on YouTube for the world to see - so I looked it up. I was suprised to find thousands of videos featuring student fights, and, yes, one of them included my former student.

What I saw on that video clip was horrifying. There's my student, who is being referred to as MadDawg, bouncing around like a boxer-in-training, air punching around another teenager's head. The other teen, referred to as "New Girl," was standing there, arms folded, telling my student that she doesn't want to fight. It's apparent that a crowd has gathered to watch the violence, obviously knowing ahead of time that the fight was scheduled. (This wasn't a situation where two teens got angry and fought in the heat of the moment.)

I was horrified as I watched the other girl say over and over that she's not there to fight and everyone should just go home. But the crowd wasn't having it. They continued to encourage the girls, saying things like, "I left my house for THIS? I was eating chicken!" Students in the crowd even push the two girls together several times, continuing to egg them on.

Finally New Girl had had enough. She picked up my student and slammed her onto the street. Then she pummeled her in the head a few times while yelling at her to go the ----- home! Finally she climbs off of her - meanwhile I can hear the crowd bullying my student about her lack of fighting skills. Apparently, that is just enough to encourage her to air-box the new girl again...who promptly slams her to the pavement again, this time putting her face close to my student's ear and repeating, "This is over. We're going home. This is over."

I watched as cell phones recorded the entire event and listened as the onlookers talked of being nervous because it appeared a neighbor had called the police. My student's sister, also a former student, then came into camera range; she's a beautiful girl with so much potential, and I watched her look right at home in the middle of this display of violence and stupidity.

It's no wonder eighth graders love The Outsiders - they aren't shocked by anything in it; instead they're comfortable. This is a world they understand.

In the movie Valentine's Day, Ashton Kutcher's character makes this comment: "Love is the only shocking thing left in the world." Apparently he's right. Violence is commonplace and accepted, even entertaining. Those participating aren't outsiders. They're part of our current culture.

But I think of my students and wish instead they were being shocked by love. And I wish YouTube would ban uploaded videos by underage kids. Somehow we have to stop giving kids, who aren't old enough to make responsible decisions, the opportunities to promote violence and to use it as entertainment. To me....that's what's shocking...

Once...

He was twelve once. With a grin as big as the classroom he sat in, he'd rather hold a football than a girl's hand. I think he laid awake at night figuring out ways to torment the teacher. Once at school, he carried out his plans, bringing his friends Barry and Kris along for the ride.

His favorite ploy was to get the teacher off the subject. He'd ask about her children...try to get information about her love life, grinning all the while. One day the teacher saw him throw a football the length of the middle school field and thought This is a very special young man.

Brian Anderson was a special young man indeed. Continuing on to high school, he became a football and wrestling star. His infectious smile permeated the high school classrooms, football field, and wrestling mat. "A real character" is how his football coach described him. "Never a dull moment with Brian around," he said.

After high school he enlisted in the Marine Corps and asked to be among the first of the troops to descend on Iraq in 2003. He didn't want his buddy, who had orders to go, to be alone. He kissed his mother goodbye and traveled halfway across the world...only to lose his life on April 2, 2003. By then he was a man, but to his teacher, he was still twelve and sitting in that last seat in the middle row...

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He was in his early twenties once. He grew up on a farm in a rural North Carolina county, digging in the soil that produced the meals for his mother, four sisters, and two brothers. He was the oldest, the man of the family. A good-looking guy, he had a smile that made some country girls swoon.

Riddick Blackwood joined the Army in August of 1944, taking the same course as so many men in those days. He reported to Germany, leaving a young wife behind, to travel to a country he'd only heard about, a land altogether different from his rural homeplace.

He would lose his life in the single largest and bloodiest battle of World War II, the Battle of the Bulge. The War Department would deliver an official message to his wife and mother, and he would be buried in Holland. His family was never able to bring him home, focused now on his two brothers still serving - Truett, who was lying wounded in an English hospital and Bob, stationed in India.

Riddick Blackwood would never meet his nephew (his baby sister's boy) or his nephew's wife who thinks about him often...especially on days like today.

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Thank you, Brian and Riddick, for what you represent and for what you sacrificed. I continue to pray for the peace that you died for.

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Remember that part in the movie Arachnophobia when the character played by Jeff Daniels mentions that there's no noise from the crickets? All of a sudden it's so quiet outside that the main character takes notice, oblivious to the fact that some creepy crawly creatures have snacked on all the insects in the land.

One day this past week I walked the halls of my school and noticed that same eerie sound. It rang out more loudly than the usual halls full of bustling children...the "he saids/she saids" of middle school class change, the laughter and joking, the "stop running, keep-to-the-right" characteristics of a school hallway.

Our huge eight-legged critter?

Testing.

I heard once that a first grader returned home from school one day during my state's End of Grade Tests (which we call EOG's) and announced, "The school was really quiet today. We had E-I-E-I-O's."

More like just O's....line after line of O's as in, "Fill in your circle completely. Be sure your mark is heavy and dark. If you erase your circle, do not try to redraw it."

Today I completed my fourteenth day of standardized testing. Next week there are makeups and retests and on and on - an army of arachnids taking over the schoolhouse and silencing the happy noises of the children.

Where's Jeff Daniels when you need him?

I LOVE sports. LOVE 'em. From little league to middle and high school, college and professional...it doesn't matter. I enjoy the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat as much as anyone. I still get chillbumps when I ride by our county's high school football stadium on a Friday night. I can smell the grass on the field, the popcorn at the concession stand, and the sweaty players running to the locker room at the end of the game. I hear the band playing Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4" and can still remember the dance I used to do on the sidelines. I have season tickets to NFL football games and Triple A baseball...so famous in my town that a movie, Bull Durham, was filmed here.

I also love the Division I university that I attended. My daughter graduated from there 24 years after I did, and coincidentally, that was the same year I earned my master's degree there. She was a captain on the cheerleading squad and traveled the country when "our" team played in the NCAA tournament. To say I'm a fan is an understatement. In my area of the state the basketball rivalry is so intense that it can break up a marriage and everyone would understand.

I love my profession, too. This week my heart broke when I read about the local teacher who is half a paycheck away from homelessness and who is in danger of losing her job. Just as I was wiping away my tears, I read the following:

"With 11% unemployment in NC that includes 5400 educator jobs, the Senate's budget continues $14 million funding of our-of-state athletes' tuition. Out-of-state athletes cost upwards of $42,000 annually, mostly at taxpayer's expense. A starting teacher in NC makes $30,000 annually."

Did you just hear a needle scratch violently across a record (you have to be my age to understand that reference.) Seriously? Seriously? I can barely summon a response.

My husband says, "Yea, but how much do those athletes bring to our state?" And to that I say, "Not a damn thing if they hadn't had thirteen years of teachers and coaches training them to do what they do and be who they are."

I'm so mad I don't even have words...

Pushing Buttons

I was in an airport bathroom recently...specifically, I was in a stall. I could hear a little girl somewhere near the sinks squealing, "I wanna push the button!" over and over and over. And over. The squeals escalated from a post-toddler whine to a pre-school shrill.

From my perspective, it was apparent that the little girl wanted to push the automatic hand dryer button. So I waited to hear the machine start up and pictured the air blowing across the little girl's head; surely, she would be just the right height for a new wind-blown hairstyle.

I never heard the hand dryer come on, but I did hear the little girl squeal her request repeatedly. But what I didn't hear was any acknowledgement from her mother. She had turned her little girl off.

The entire scenario reminded me of the summer of 1989, a month before my son's kindergarten year. By chance we ran into his first ever public school teacher in the shopping mall, just before school started. Coincidentally, the teacher had a son the same age as mine. And interestingly he was banging her on the head with a balloon the whole time we chatted.

It went something like this: "Yes, he'll need paper, pencils, a box of tissues, a glue stick..." BOP! "Oh, and don't forget about Open House...." BOP! "I'm so happy to have your son in my class this year..." BOP BOP!!!

The teacher never said a word to her son, and I decided she was accustomed to him, somewhat desensitized to his antics. During my restroom stall retreat, I thought back to that teacher and that little boy and thought about how my buddy out by the hand dryer was turned off, too. It was as if her mother didn't even notice her squeals, desensitized to shrill requests because she most likely hears them all day.

All of a sudden, in a bathroom stall in Baltimore, Maryland, it hit me. Lawmakers are turning the same deaf ear to educators. We've squealed about working conditions, salaries, and layoffs. Recently, we've taken to marching, walking out, protesting, and letter and editorial writing. But it's as if policymakers have their fingers stuffed in their ears, singing, "I can't hear you. I can't hear you..." Apparently, they are desensitized to our pleas.

So, finally on the plane and ascending upward and over Washington, DC, where so much of what impacts us as teachers is decided, I thought about how to get our message across in ways that are more difficult to "turn off."

First, I truly believe you get more with honey than vinegar. Angry outbursts and name-calling are the best ways to ensure that they won't hear what you say; they'll hear how you say it. Remain calm, state the facts, and have data to back it up. No squealing or whining allowed.

Next...learn from history. Dr. Martin Luther King's peaceful protests changed our country. Walk to the capitol if you like; carry a sign displaying your message. But don't communicate threats or yell obscenities. Hang on to your self control by thinking about the message you're sending to your students or your own children. We should all be role models for peace.

Also, use your 21st century technology skills and get your messsage out there so you can drum up support. Have you heard of California teacher Anthony Cody's Letters to Obama that got him an audience with Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education? Mr. Cody's use of social networking helped him connect with educators all over the country and thus send a message to policymakers that can't be turned off.

Last, it's necessary to hit 'em where it's important, with stories of our students and our children. For example, my sixth grade student Jake has almost learned how to say his "r's" during this school year. But if the speech teacher's position is cut, he'll move on to high school sounding much younger than his actual age. Perla, my English Language Learner, will continue to struggle in school if her ESL teacher is moved elsewhere. And Andre and JoeJoe will have a difficult time learning in a classroom with 38 other kids. They've told me they do better in small groups. But fewer teachers mean crowded classrooms and less learning for Andre and JoeJoe.

So, yes, we do want to push their buttons. But first they have to hear our requests. We need to do whatever it takes to make that happen.

Teachers Who Make a Difference

I've just completed my first ever Book Tour which included four states, six television interviews, a radio interview, and three book signings. But after all of that excitement, I was inspired when I checked my email after my trip. At the end of my book, Finding Mrs. Warnecke, I ask for readers to write me and tell me about their own "Mrs. Warnecke," the teacher who made a difference. I returned from my trip to hear from Susan, a teacher in the Virgin Islands:

Hey Cindi,

I tore through your book lent to me by my boss, Edney Freeman, Virgin Islands Teacher of the Year, and enjoyed it thoroughly. My Mrs. Warnecke was a teaching nun, Sister Mary Remy Revor, who I didn't encounter until I was 30 years old. She taught fabric arts at Arrowmont School of the Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and in two weeks was able to undo all the negative messages I had received over the years about what art is supposed to be. "Never use pink and yellow together," was the rule according to my elementary school art teacher. The unspoken lesson in college was that men are the artists and women are the models. I dropped out of college after three years because I couldn't see the point.

Sister Remy taught me to take pride in my own work and to believe in myself. She shared everything she knew, no holding back secret tricks. With that positive experience under my belt, I continued taking art classes during the summer and eventually returned to college where I earned BFA Honors, was accepted into the MFA program as a teaching assistant (they paid me!) and started teaching high school art. Certification courses led to an MAE, but all the pedagogy in the world pales in comparison to the example set by Sister Remy. This is what I bring to my students.

Susan Edwards
Charlotte Amalie High School
St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands

(Thank you, Mrs. Warnecke and Sister Mary Remy Revor!)

The Forgotten Middle

Once I was told I had to attend a workshop on reading instruction. Having just earned my master's degree in K-12 literacy, I was looking forward to the opportunity. Soon the text for the training arrived, and it was subtitled "Strategies for K-5 Reading," and somehow I knew - this would not the best workshop for a middle school teacher.

It happens time and time again. Middle school teachers continue to attend trainings that are geared toward elementary readers. I sat through another one today...learning about cute little phonics activities that aren't appropriate for eighth graders. Interestingly, the International Reading Association lists Adolescent Readers as a "very hot" topic. So why can't we go to a conference and find more than one "very hot" breakout session?

Today I returned home from the conference to find an interesting brochure in my mailbox; I saw the title "Units of Study for Teaching Reading." Then I saw the subtitle: "A Curriculum for the Reading Workshop: Grades 3-5." Ahhh. Again.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to look at the President's blueprint for the reauthorization of ESEA - aka NCLB. I have been looking forward to a new version of this legislation, a version that wouldn't be punitive to the hard-working teachers of this country. What I wasn't looking forward to is that during the discussion of preparing students for college and beyond ("all students graduate high school on time prepared for at least one year of post-secondary") middle school students are lumped together with high school students in a group called "Secondary 6-12."

I'd like to offer that a sixth grader and a twelfth grader have drastically different needs when it comes to graduation preparation and college readiness. A sixth grader is more concerned with remembering a locker combination than remembering to complete a college application. And although we are certainly focusing on the "pre" part of "preparing" our students for college, our focus is more on the organizational and study skills needed to master the rigorous coursework that will enable kids to be competitive when it comes to college acceptance in the future.

So for that reason I'd like to ask for the middle school to have its own category: "Middle School 6-8" so that we can focus on what needs to be done during those all important years, those three years when children change the most - from loving, sweet elementary children...to independent, thriving adolescents excited about high school. Add to my list of requests some breakout sessions at a reading conference that relate to adolescent readers.

It's a hot topic to the International Reading Association...but only lukewarm to the rest of the world.