Sidetrack: Teaching Advice

 Once upon a time I was a student teacher.  And before that, a mere student.  When I finally decided to pursue teaching, I  had a professor who took me under his wing and offered me a student teaching job at one of the most prestigious high schools in America…It's the oldest.   Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, countless others spent their teen years there preparing for they knew not what, a country they could barely imagine, preparing for Harvard, a divinity school at the time and I was chosen to learn to teach here, in the halls of greatness. 

And yet, I was not great.This came as a colossal surprise to me.  I had watched my dad teach for over 20 years at that time (over 30 before he retired) and although his work seemed grueling- his ideas, lesson plans and general classroom management seemed more an extension of his magnanimous personality and great faith rather than a skill honed by the aforementioned 20 years. 

 I was wrong.  Skill was indeed involved and wisdom.  And as the bard was wont to say, “Therein lies the rub.” How does one attain wisdom?  And on a deadline too.  

My professor gave me great advice, so much advice.  

“That was a disaster, don't try and force it.”  

“They won’t respect you if you speak to them like that.” 

“Don’t let them think that they are in charge or can manipulate you.” 

And yet even with all this feedback, and examples, these nudgings, corrections, exhortations and principles of pedagogy I found myself one Friday afternoon ready to quit.

I did not see myself getting any better.  

I was exhausted and frustrated.  

I boarded the inbound green line T and plopped down on the green line next to my friend Kat.  I put my head in my hands. “I can’t do it.”

 “You can,” she encouraged me, “you are doing it.”  

“No, I can’t!  He is never happy with me.  I am too strict, too lax, my standards unreasonable, my assignments too juvenile.  I cannot get it right and its killing me!”  

She looked at me and reminded me that perfectionism is the death of many a great teacher because we cannot control all the variables. Then, it was her stop and I was left alone on the lurching train.  

    I sat there, pondering all this advice, all this truth and yet none of it helping me right then and there. I simply could not make sense of it. Nor would it for another four or five years.

But I did not give up teaching.  I’m honestly not sure why. Stubborn, I guess.

Finally, one day, when I least expected it, it made sense. All of it. ALL of the advice was sound.  BUT it was advice only, it was not a rule of  law, not an unbreakable truth. I could not apply it in every situation.  It was all good but I had to know when to use it. I had to have my own brain, my own experiences and trust my own gut as a teacher to know when to hold the line and when to extend grace, to determine if it was a day to check boxes and meet objectives no matter the objections or to stop and listen to the objections, seeing them as teachable moments.  

    I have gotten it wrong….a lot.  Maybe more than I’ve gotten it right and the hard part about teaching, and parenting, and loving and just plain living to be honest: we sometimes don’t even know if we did the best thing, we merely did the best we could in that moment. But, ahh for the times you get it right, and you see the dawning of understanding on a student’s face.  Those moments are not about advice or perfect execution of a pedagogical principle.   Those moments are pure grace.  

Working Backwards

I took copious notes when I arrived here.  Like an anthropologist intent on setting down every experience and interaction. And like every good novel about an obsessive compulsive note taker devoted to detailing with precision events that can never be replicated…the notes have ... .of course… been lost, ruined, taken in a figurative fire that is known in many circles as "Built in obsolescence." My angst over it is fairly
intense.  How can I possibly began to explain the past 7 years? (note photos)

AND yet.  Maybe the work was in the writing. 

The changes on every front were so monumental that perhaps the only or best way I could deal with the absolute unknowns surrounding our housing, money, and future was to chronicle the best way I knew possible. 

And perhaps looking back after five years I can see not every tree that meant so much at that time in my life, but at least the forest that we navigated and traversed. 

So, with the disclaimer, I hope we all realize there will be plot gaps, questions, random thoughts per usual.  Still, as is the watchword on this endeavor, “I’m just going to write because I cannot help it.”- Charlotte Bronte (still and always).

Restart (A truly great YA novel if you haven't read it)

 At least three major things have happened since I wrote that last piece…”Never…”  possibly 2-300 more but I will try to be brief. 

I had the baby for one.  He’s perfect.  He’s 6 now and wild and courageous and everything I never could have imagined.  

The world shut down for another thing.  That was a disaster I never want to experience again but am so proud I survived, surrounded by the best community possible.  

And as if all that weren’t enough, we moved across the country.  All six of us and my mother in law and started over in a state I swore to never visit again let alone reside in.  And of course, somehow, it has become my home.  Not my true home. I know more and more that we are mere sojourners on this journey.  But a home none the less, full of love, laughter, tears, joy, freedom and growing.  So much growing! I just want to write about it all, before it all slips by.  

So, if you are here for that journey- that quest- buckle up because as I tell each and every one of my students “Life’s Hard….Wear a Helmet.” 

Never

       I’m a fairly superstitious person. I’ve always chalked it up to being from New England.  You can't be a Red Sox fan without a healthy fear of  jinxes…both big and small: upside down horse shoes, black cats, walking under ladders, “calling” a no-hitter when the pitcher is having a golden game, and my personal plague: saying “never."  The very utterance of the word "never" works to ensure that the thing is bound to happen. 

Perhaps the most ironic of my “never” declarations comes from my fear of being a mother.  There is no job for which I feel more ill-equipped and terrified of than that of raising small human beings into decent, God fearing adults. Mothers are 24/7 life or death decision-making executives for 18+ years straight.  This job description doesn’t play to my strengths. I mean I see both sides of every decision. I may take a definitive stance on whether or not I want my appetizer when it's ready or with the others.

      And then….of course…because I said never, I became a mom. Within hours I realized that there is no way to prepare for being a parent. It was far more difficult than I predicted  and yet exceeded any joy I could have imagined. Still, it was terrifying to continually have someone depending on me for their basic needs.  So, I maturely and promptly vowed never to have another child. 

But apparently, jinxes are stronger than birth control and only 25 months later my next baby was born, a beautiful tiny girl with perfect pink lips and striking blue eyes.  A boy and a girl, both healthy and beautiful, I might be overwhelmed but I knew this kind of happy doesn't come around often.  I had everything I never dreamed of and I never planned on having a third.

Yet again, one year later I learned we were (despite all medical explanations) having a third. This was by far the most scary and taxing of my pregnancies.  To be honest, most of it I can’t remember: dehydration, hemorrhaging, constant nausea and lapses in and out of  consciousness.  I learned the hard way I had to depend on others just to survive. And after a complicated and traumatic delivery, I was told that having another child would be a huge risk.  I was not worried, I was happy that this third tiny person was in my arms and I never needed to go through all that again.

  Four years passed and I started to get cocky, all my children were potty trained and out of early intervention.  We didn’t need to lug a stroller or diaper bag everywhere, heck my kids could even buckle their own car seats.  The really insane infant/ toddler stage had passed and both the kids and I had survived.  I even got to sleep through the night on a regular basis. Nope, I was never having another kid.  But I am getting smarter with age and I realized that with my luck I could take no chances.  So, I went to my OB-GYN to have an IUD put in.  As part of the “pre-op” they had to give me a pregnancy test to make sure there was no baby already occupying that space. 

There was.  The doctor came back with the strangest look on her face like she was as shocked as I was that modern medicine is truly no match for fate. I was…I am...having a fourth baby.

  My whole world came crashing down on my head.  I’d already lost my career, my health, my independence once, how could I do it again?  Could I even live through the next nine months?  And as I sat in my long awaited, seemingly huge SUV, after years of squeezing three babies in a sedan, I realized we would once again have no extra seats or room to pack anything other than baby gear.  I began to sob. 

Then a verse sprang into my heart so clearly I had to sit up and think, “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”  Maybe the "curse of never" wasn’t fate, or superstition or a cruel joke. None of the things I had said, "never"  to are mere detours or cosmic mistakes, they are the best of me.  So, I think it's about time this "advanced age maternal patient"  trade in my weak superstitions and finally live by faith in a God who loves me, no matter what, who is a better parent than I will ever be, who fills in the gaps when I fall down and fail.  The God for whom nothing is impossible.

Women's World Cup: Hometown Hero

   

 It surprises people that I played Varsity Soccer in high school.  Some people passively acknowledge their disbelief by making vague comments about “athletic people,” of which I am clearly not considered. Others just come right out and say it, “God, I would NEVER think that YOU played sports, you just don’t…uhhh…like seem like the type.” But I did, I played three seasons of varsity sports and in my senior year I was captain of  two: soccer and lacrosse.  Believe me...I don’t say this to brag.  My graduating class was 42 people, roughly half of us were girls.  Also, we had more than one sport to choose from… so, despite having a lazy eye and being legally blind without my glasses, I was, at the time, considered one of the most athletic people in my tiny Private School bubble.  

The weird thing about a small private school is that you have many “athletes” like myself who love the game and have a healthy competitive nature.  But then there are others with honest to goodness insane talent. Truly Big Fish in small ponds. But none as big as one that arose from our rival school, Christian Heritage. As the Women’s World Cup races on and I continually see her on TV, being an all star, and I marvel that I really and truly know her.  I mean, not on like a heart to heart level, she did go to our rival school after all but being from such a small world, I was good friends with her cousin and my youngest sister was inseparable from hers at summer camp. Our parents were friends as well.  

It’s surreal for me how  far she has come. She has flown out of the small pond we both came from and end up dominating in the real freaking ocean.  It makes me feel proud and jealous and just all around amazed that an every day person, real flesh and blood is capable of the super human feats we see on TV.  

Unless you also went to private school in Connecticut you may not know that I am talking about the tough as nails Alyssa Naeher.  Now, I will admit, when I first met her on the pitch I was less enthusiastic than I am now, watching from my couch.  

In my senior season of soccer two eighth grade twins were allowed onto our rival school’s soccer team. This was not unheard of since our schools were small and often lacked numbers.  But these two were much more than numbers. The twins did not appear threatening at first.  They were identical, short and skinny with bowl cuts that never seemed to fall into their eyes. They were wiry, tough and absolutely unstoppable.  One of them played goalie and one striker (actually they both probably played both. I honestly don’t know.)  We often made jokes that they’d have to get sick or hurt for us to even have a chance.   For years they dominated our league.  No-one scored against the goalie, no-one could stop the striker.  My younger sister played them without success, then my youngest sister as well. Finally, they went off to college and the rest of the league returned to status quo.  

But seriously, watching her rise to national and international level is inspirational.  She was young and talented but that is never enough.  She had setbacks, she had losses, she had to wait and wait and wait….but she never gave up.  And the hard work, the day in day out dedication is paying off.  I love to watch her play and for all us New Englanders I think she truly deserves the title of  Hometown Hero.