Givin' Halloween a Chance

I used to proclaim that Halloween was my least favorite holiday. First, as a single parent of young children, the celebration was yet another thing I did alone, from costume gathering to trick-or-treating to stomach soothing after too much sugar ingesting.

Also, as a young mother, it seemed to me that there was an unspoken competition when it came to putting costumes together. If I dared to show up to a pre-school party with my kids decked out in pre-fab costumes (some type of vinyl body cover and a plastic mask so popular in the 80's) there would be looks of pity and then whispers as one-by-one the other moms would shake their heads at my kids and then walk away, dragging their child-model in a handsewn costume with them. I'm not much of a competitor when it comes to things I don't know how to do. I decided then to hate Halloween and all the tricks and treats that went with it.

But perhaps the biggest reason I began to dread the orange holiday as soon as the first leaf yellowed is obvious - I TEACH MIDDLE SCHOOL! Are you kidding me? It seems my fate was incredibly twisted. 11-13 year olds are unteachable at Halloween! Right up there with Valentine's Day and Winter Break, the days surrounding that ghastly day have always been difficult. Candy gathered in the 'hood the night before means candy in the school the day after. And kids aren't even sneaky about it! A question about a character in a story was once drowned out by an across-the-classroom trade: "I'll give you my candy corn for your malted milk balls." Let's just say the rest of the class missed the "malted milk" part, and it took me the remainder of the period to settle them down.

But one year someone talked me into participating in our school-wide Halloween celebration. I resisted, but then she brought me the costume. Our school mascot was the Red Devils (since changed to Cardinals due to the hellish nature of the name), and the costume was a bright red, lycra unitard with matching headband/horns and a tail. It was so beautiful I couldn't resist. It looked like this, only sans the flames and wings:

There was a contest - one money prize for a teacher and one for a student. And we wore our costumes to school on Halloween Day. I absolutely cannot believe that I wore that skin-tight outfit to school. Yes, I was a 30-year-old very skinny teacher at the time. But STILL! What were my 7th graders thinking?

I tell you what they were thinking...that their teacher won $50 for the best costume! From then on, I was hooked. Halloween is awesome!! I even began to incorporate Halloween into our classroom activities. The students love our Fright Fair project; they all write scary stories, and then they're assigned projects that match their interests and skills. Some kids design, make, and deliver the invitations. Others design and then decorate the room.

On Halloween Day teachers come to hear story readings. The room is dark except for one small light in the middle of a story-telling circle and the orange lights that are weaved through the spiderwebs hanging on the walls and the whiteboard. Carrot cake is served to the visitors and a ghoulish time is had by all.

Last night as I sat on a hayride and watched my granddaughter (Cinderella) treat-or-treat, I thought Halloween is my favorite holiday!

Also known as....if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

To a Farmer Dying Young (with thanks to A.E. Housman)

...Today, the road all runners come,

Shoulder-high to bring you home

And set you at your threshold down,

Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away

From fields where glory does not stay,

And early though the laurel grows

It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut

Cannot see the record cut

And silence sounds no worse than cheers

After earth has stopped the ears...

excerpt from "To An Athlete Dying Young"
A.E. Housman

I met him when we were both college freshmen. We graduated high school the same year in towns eight miles apart, and he was the kind of person who immediately made others feel they'd always known him. The freshman year is when the circle of friends widens - high school friends of dormmates come to visit, and soon the world is bigger and better. Such it was with Rob.

I was reading Housman poems in Freshman English back then, picking them apart, every word holding more meaning than a nineteen-year-old would originally think. I worked at learning how to get inside the mind of a poet...while Rob was across campus, learning how to breed cattle. Animal Husbandry he called his major. This city girl had never heard of it.

One weekend the future farmer took me to his family's farm. So many cows in one place! It was a dairy farm then, and Rob called me over to see the special cow, being milked just at that time. He said, "Look, this cow has a square hole." Just as I bent over to look at the hole, I got a face full of fresh milk. He laughed himself silly over that one, although I'm sure he'd pulled that trick thousands of times.

Later that afternoon, he took me for a ride through the country on his motorcycle, my first ride out in the open air like that. I was reminded of an Anne Morrow Lindbergh book I had recently read. She described her first airplane flight with her future husband, Charles. She talked about feeling so free, seeing everything from a different perspective...with the wind in her hair.

That's how that ride felt to me...and that day on the farm. I had a renewed perspective, one altogether different the next day when I poured milk on my cereal.

The years went by, like that wind on that day, and Rob and I went on with our lives, our marriages, and our families. But Rob Hogan taught me the meaning of simpler things, the love of farm animals, and what being kind to people is all about. I've seen him a couple of times over the years. We've laughed at how far we've come - with ever-growing families and responsibilities.

But yesterday when he died, I felt like we were still there - nineteen years old with our lives before us. To me, Rob will always be that college kid with the beautiful smile, even though now he's somewhere in a dreamy pasture, playing the square hole joke on angels.

Waiting for Pinocchio...to check his sources...

The title of this blog changed along the way - it started as "Waiting for Pinocchio to SHUT UP!" But the seething anger I've been carrying around is so toxic I had to temper it lest I come across as short and snippy with friends, colleagues, and worst-of-all, the students in my school.

"Pinocchio" refers to the propaganda pushers who are speaking of public schools as if they themselves sit in the front row of Miss Kilpatrick's classroom every day and therefore are experts on the issues of education. In the process there is misinformation (read: lies) being broadcast across the country.

Educators have been speaking out, for example, about the movie Waiting for Superman (I won't include the link to the trailer because I refuse to promote it.) I did watch the preview...once...and will not watch it again. Basically it says that schools and teachers are failing and that charter schools are the answer to all of public education's problems.

I'm sure there are some amazing charter schools. There are also some lousy ones. Sound familiar? Can we not say that about non-charter public schools, private schools, churches, restaurants, medical facilities, and on and on?

Oprah even hung on to Waiting for Superman's cape and made sure her audience was made aware of how difficult it is to get "bad" teachers out of schools. Did you know that teachers receive tenure after two years? That's what Pinocchio said that day. Well, guess what? It takes four years in my state. Four. At the end of years one, two, and three, a principal can decide to "non-renew" a contract. It seems to be a secret that poor teachers can be let go.

Teachers have been weary for awhile now...taking the blame for the alleged "failure" in schools. We're not weary any more. We're mad.

But what can we do about a movie that says "Our schools are failing. Our teachers are failing"? I heard a principal yesterday say, "We're always the punching bag...always on our heels...we're never on our toes, punching ourselves..."

I think it's time to punch Pinocchio. Let's make our own movies. Grab a video camera and record a success story, a student talking about the public school experience that kept him in school, another talking about the teacher who made a difference. Let's edit all the clips together and make our own movie - Superman is HERE. I have my camera ready? Do you?

With the End in Sight...

If you're in any way connected to education, you're beginning to feel a simmering force field of energy around you, and you know it's coming: the First Day of School.

I've been noticing it for awhile; I once was a Year-Round Calendar teacher, and I know how it feels to get those little prickles of excitement well before now. And as I've written before, the First Day is the BEST day (which is why I capitalize it like a holiday!) Blogs this time of year will be full of First Day activities and tips, and teachers all around are anxious with expectations on this the Happy New Year of Teaching.

This year, as you hand out insurance forms and Free/Reduced Lunch applications, I hope you'll think about another exciting time of a school year - the Last Day of School. As you look at your freshly scrubbed darlings sitting quietly (which is a good thing because you don't really know their names yet), think about what they'll look like, who they'll be, on the last day of school.

Chances are they'll be worn down and weary, many who worked dilligently but still failed standardized tests, many who've endured life-changing circumstances in their home lives - separation, divorce, domestic abuse, some who haven't fit in this year and are hoping for better things ahead...

I've written about Jamie who began the school year as a sixth grader, giddy with excitement, happy as a bird as my mother-in-law used to say. Fast forward to the end - Jamie was sullen, even weepy at times, over his parents' separation and pending divorce. He acted out in an effort to get attention of any kind, even negative. I didn't let him down. There were just days when he would push my buttons, and I'd end up calling his dad. Most days I was a listener and an advice-giver. But some days he wore me to the brink of exhaustion.

Teachers get worn down, too...tired of working extra hours for less pay, tired of health insurance costing more, but covering less, and tired of hanging from the ceiling fan to teach standards to kids, some who still don't pass standardized tests.

Last week I was on a beach vacation. I rode my bike just by a marshy area beautiful with blue water and green marsh reflections. I wrote the following about one particular morning:

Oak Island Goodbye

The pelican

has a choreographed

flight.

The pattern

is not a chance

meeting

of wind and wing.

Instead he flaps

rhythmically

just inches

above the water

then glides

on that glassy surface

until gravity

persuades the wings

to move again.

I watch

through sea oats

and grassy marsh,

looking over

sun-dotted water

and then make a vow:

Once I’m back

to my racetrack life...

speeding in circles

and getting nowhere...

I’ll remember

this place

and that bird

and this moment.

I’ll hold it

and think yet again

to slow down

and glide.

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I challenge you to cherish those First Day children all year long. On the last day, look at them again and assess what your impact has been on their lives. In between...when you're weary and they're pushing buttons, think of that day and remember the freshly scrubbed darlings of nine months ago. Hold them like that as long as you can...

On Teaching "Broken" Children

My son is getting married next month. In the whirlwind that is wedding planning, I find that I have to work through one more step than most mothers-of-the-groom. The fact that I'm no longer married to my son's father means that every decision involves a call or an email; I can't simply turn to my husband over in his recliner and ask him a question. He is not my children's father so he doesn't feel that his opinions on who-sits-where at the rehearsal dinner are needed.

All of this extra thinking and consideration for my ex and his wife have catapulted me straight into a period of reflection. As my son is about to marry, I wonder if he is damaged any by the life we chose for him, the every-other-weekend, changing-of-the-guard, who-am-I-with-for-Christmas-this-year existence that began for him when he was three.

As I think back about his life, I also think about my students in similar situations. Following is a plea to teachers who have students from what someone, at some point, coined "broken homes."

Dear Teachers,

I know it's annoying when your students don't bring in homework. I also know it's highly suspect when they claim to have left it at Mom's while they were spending the night with Dad. But I hope you'll be sensitive to this situation. It's a challenge to pack up kids - for the night and for school the next day - and deliver them halfway between two places at a previously determined time. Not only is it a challenge, but it hurts. Handing children off to the other parent is a situation that leaves one parent driving home feeling like someone's delivered a swift kick to the gut. And returning to the house to find it empty, except for toys on the floor and, oops, a homework paper on the kitchen table, is heartbreaking. Kids sense, and feel, the heartbreak, too. Unfortunately those feelings interrupt the organization process, and things are forgotten. Please think of that scenario whenever homework is missing from kids who live in two places. It'll get turned in...as soon as the guard changes again.

Also, be sure to do all the research you need to help you better understand which parent the student actually lives with (if not both), how often he/she sees the other parent, and which parent is the one you should contact about school related issues. I ask my students to write their own names and addresses on a note card on the first day of school and the names of their parents. I then ask them to circle the name(s) of the parent(s) with whom they live. I learned this lesson the hard way. Once a student wrote both parents' names on a card. After trying unsuccessfully to call the mother, I dialed the number beside the father's name. After I mentioned my student, the parent began screaming at me over the phone, telling me he hadn't seen the child in seven years. Yikes! I should've done my homework.

Last, although you should be sensitive and flexible when circumstances occur that are out of a child's control, don't let them play the "broken home" card every time they think they deserve more time, more attention, or lower expectations. I taught my kids that they had to work twice as hard at school because they received two sets of birthday presents. Okay, not really...but I did tell them that our home situation would one day make them stronger and would enable them to be loved by many more people - extended families, step-parents and step-siblings, half-siblings, etc.

Still, think about your "back and forth" students as you make decisions in your classroom. One day, one of them will be getting married, and someone will be working overtime to make sure everything runs smoothly.

Sincerely,

One Who Knows

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.