Aug 29, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post

Learning Beyond
©August 29th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Don’t take me away!
She cries to Death
Who comes quietly
And waits in shadow.

And Death asks in a voice
As dry as deserts:
Why do you seek to stay?

And she replies,
With thirst in her throat:
There is much to learn
And I’m not done
This life still calls.

Death’s voice is warm
Caressing her like a lover,
As he replies:
You cannot stay.
Your time is up. 
Why prolong misery?
It’s peaceful out there
Where I’ll take you.
Come.  Come.  Come.

With honeyed voice,
He opens his arms in invitation.
She gasps.  His cloak is endless.

Shadowy shapes sweep across
Moving tapestries, skulls
With wine and roses,
Ancient stories full of blood
Destruction and endings,
And creation and infinity, and
Songs like childhood’s end.
Beauty like sunlight folded
Into itself, over and over.
Stars winking out, one by one,
Spiraling into darkness.

And she is impelled
By a strange new thirst
She wants to know.
She has to know
What lies in the folds
Of that cloak.

Death speaks again, his voice hard:
You have no choice.

She smiles. 
I do.

She steps forward, lithe and young
Her laughter shakes the air
Like a girl shaking water
From her hair, as she flings
It away from her drowning face.

Death gazes at her now,
Spellbound, in love.
Throws wide his cloak
She slips into its folds,
And they swirl away.

____________________________________________________

Learning

Tags: #DailyPrompt, #Learning, #MetaphysicalMusing, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost

Feb 13, 2016 The Daily Post

Quoth the Teacher:  Never Again!
©February 13th, 2016Dreamer of Dreams

Never Again

Even as I write this, I hesitate.  But this was MY life and reality for seventeen years, and I will write about it.

So, to what do I say Never Again?

Waking up at 6:20 a.m., frantically getting showered, dressed, coffee-d, and unbreakfasted (except for ten almonds) and ready for school, which begins at 7:30, an unholy time for a nightbird like me?  Never again!

Hurrying down the hallways to the photocopier only to find five other teachers lined up before me, waiting to get their quiz or test or handout copies for the day done?  Never again.

Staying after school to clean up, prepare a lesson plan, wipe surfaces, sweep up (most of the custodians did a shoddy job, so I simply pre-empted their efforts in my classroom by doing it myself), and put up student work?  Never again.

Facing parochial, judgmental attitudes, and uncomprehending colleagues in a mostly white, Catholic, self-satisfied suburban school system?  Never again?

Attending rambling, endless meetings, where a powerful few held sway and drowned out the rest?  Never again.

Having rigid and pointless schedules to follow, schedules which didn’t allow for spontaneity?  Never again.

Dealing with some bullying teachers, who didn’t see that the sign on their door (a slash through the word “Bully”) was completely ironic?  Never again.

Staying up until 2:00 a.m., grading student assignments (many of which were written by my poor stressed-out, over-scheduled students to please their parents and teachers and achieve their elusive dream of getting good grades in eighth grade, in the hopes that this would advance them along the path to Harvard or M.I.T., or Yale)?  Never again!

Having to chase down students who hadn’t done their work, in order to get something, anything in order to help them not get failing grades, because, otherwise, there was hell to pay from the system or from parents?  Never again.

Having to deal with and defuse irrational hatred directed at me by certain, difficult students, to whom I was nothing but kind?  Never again.

Having to deal with the double-handful of racist parents (and their mutely racist children) I have had over the course of my seventeen years of teaching?  Never again!

Having to write reports for the special education students, whose I.E.P.s needed annual reports?  Never again.

Having to adjust my tests to accommodate the needs of special education teachers, many of whom were simply covering their behinds, out of fear of legal repercussions?  Never again.

Having to deal with prejudiced custodians, or disrespectful secretaries?  Never again.

What I will miss, though:

• Teaching my students in the classroom (which I loved)
• Helping my students get better at reading and writing.
• Helping expand their consciousness with connections to art, psychology, anthropology and science in an English class.
• Running a Drama Club, writing a play and having brilliant students in it, many of whom have gone on to becoming playwrights, writers, actors and directors now, and who are still in touch with me.
• Running a Homework Club.
• Running a Poetry Club, and truly gifted “alternative” students come devotedly every week, and write poems, because they loved writing.  Many of them still write beautifully, and have been published.
  
• Running the Green Team with dedicated, planet-conscious, environmentally-informed students, several of whom were also poets in my Poetry Club.
• Some of my dear colleagues, who’ve always cheered me up and on.
• Making bulleted lists.  (Just kidding!)

Don’t get me wrong.  I learned a lot being a brown-skinned, red-dotted, Indian teacher in a suburban school system.  I made several good friends among my colleagues, who offset for me the deep rejection I experienced at the hands of others.  I’ve taught almost 2000 students in my classroom over the years, and several others in my Poetry and Drama Clubs, and the Environmental Team.  I was deeply fond of many of my students, and they were influenced by me.  From them, I learned to be a better teacher.  Observing my colleagues, I learned about how one should play the political game at school, although I didn’t play it.  I learned that when the outside world threatens the world of teachers, they band together and protect each other.  This can be a great thing.  It can also be a terrible thing.  I learned that if anyone in the teacher community has a personal setback or a disaster, all the other teachers help out.  And I learned that everyone has sorrows and troubles, and therefore I must, for my own soul’s sake, forgive them their trespasses against me.

But I sure am glad that I never have to go there and teach again.  I gave notice six months in advance, much to everyone’s surprise (because I had the school-teacher’s equivalent of “tenure” and I had name-recognition and respect in the larger community) — and left at the end of the teaching year, last June.

It felt as if a huge weight had rolled off my shoulders.  I’ve been trying to walk straight since then, metaphorically.

And I’ve been recovering.  It’s as if I’ve been through a protracted, debilitating illness.  My brain’s turned fuzzy, and I have grief at irrational times.  I feel damaged.

But I’m happy now, with my dearly beloved, loving husband, my beautiful, loving daughter, my beautiful, funny, loving dog.

I take walks in the woods on most days.  I write a lot more.  I’m singing and playing guitar again.

But will I teach again in public schools?  I want to say, Never again! but one cannot truly say, Never again, can one?

But I will.  And I won’t.

__________________________________________________________

Tags: #DailyPost, #Learning, #Teaching, public schools

Oct 2, 2015 Original Poetry, Writing 101

Image by Cheri Lucas Rowlands

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Journey to the Heart of the Web
(In the Future — My Day 20 Post)
©October 1st, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram

The future is now.  And now.  And now!
Half-way towards my Death, I lurch.
I see her lurking in the shadows.  Her breath
So cold, her eyes so gray, her face silver
Like stars stretched across space.

She is patient, so patient!  Spinning,
Spanning time, hanging beads of questions
On her web, and oh! how big those questions:
Who are you?
Where are you headed?
Why toil so much?

I am silent, thinking.
I am one among many
Unique to those I love,
And to those who love me,
Forgotten by the rest.
I have poems to write,
Songs to sing, a daughter to cherish
A husband to love, a dog to adore.
I have a garden and a novel waiting
For me to nurture them into life.
I have books to read, things to put away,
Flowers to inhale, birds to feed,
Snow to play in, a planet to explore.
This is not toil, though it is work.
And it is joy.

I say to her:
I am not ready for you.  Hang back,
Step away from me!

And her voice, cold as glass, says:
I am always waiting.  I will welcome you.

Not yet, I say, calmly, hold back.
I have plans.  I do not fear you,
But I have a life to build,
I’ll create a tower,
With storeys* made of story.
In the future, just before you entwine me in silk,
In my future, I will write,
And sing, and teach my child.
I will love my husband and child,
And take them with me on
A story-journey.  We will travel
Through my stories, and theirs,
Sing our songs, grow our minds,
Forget our fears, drop our bags,
And run through the fields.

And Death is silent.  Then, she says:
I shall be waiting.
Her voice is like a desert.

I think: My stories will come to me
From the spring of stories
That encircles the world,
And brings life to parched places,
And I want to dip my cup
In that water, and drink deep.
So, I face my future,
Setting my face against that quiet
Shadowed form, that voice
That rustles, my Death so elegant,
So ice-quiet.

But her voice, cold as glass, says,
I shall wait for you.
I am always waiting.  I will welcome you.

Yes, wait, keep waiting, I say.

I think:  In my future, I will learn better
How to tell those stories,
And sing songs, and write poems,
I will strip ego, and listen, listen
To all the people I meet,
Sans judgement, sans fear,
Sans ready response.  For, in their
Voices, stories live, and in their
Hearts, grow dreams and love.
I will see their hearts, and sing those songs.

And I turn to her, and say:
When you come, O Death,
I shall sing you my song,
And tell you my story,
And we will journey together
To the heart of your web.
And we will be as one.
But not yet, not yet,
I have plans, and
There is much to learn.

And Death pauses, sighs,
Rustles her robe, turns away.
And her voice, cold as glass, whispers:
I shall wait for you.
I am always waiting.  I will welcome you,
And you shall tell me your story.

___________________________________________________________________________________

*In the US, the word storey is not much used.  But those from other English-speaking countries will know what I mean.

Tags: #Death, #Journey, #Learning, #Life, #Love, Family time, fear, poems, songs, stories

Apr 22, 2013 Original Poetry, Reading, Writing, Thinking, Teaching and Learning

Daily-ness and Disaster
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 22nd, 2013

How banal, how mundane
How silly, how pointless
Our lives seem!

Sitting in class, pencils in hand
Trying to be good, while
The teacher gazes on.

Stern she looks, and somber
Trying to be vigilant
Wasting time on gum-chewers
And time-wasters.

When elsewhere, lives end
Abruptly, pointlessly.
Grief and loss bloom
Like a mushroom cloud

Over a teeming populace
Wiped out by violence,
Riven by famine and flood.

And children torn from the arms of love,
Watch as parents are afloat on a sea
Of uncertainty.

Where food comes from
Hardly matters, when
They worry about whether
It comes, at all.

Whether school is up and running
Seems to matter so little, and yet
Someone is shot at brutally,
Risking her all, to reach school.

Elsewhere, in the city, last week
A child of eight died, in mid-cheer
Abruptly, pointlessly, painfully.
A shining being, ready for greatness.

And here, in the humming peace
The strumming quiet
The numbing apathy of daily life
We sit, pretending what we do matters.

It may all seem pointless now,
In the aftermath of recent tragedy.
And I might be right.

But I’d like to be hopeful
I’d like to say it matters
I’d like to say, “Everything,
But everything matters.”

Writing matters, reading matters,
Being hopeful matters, being good
Matters a whole lot.

And I would be right.

~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Hope, #Learning, #NaPoWriMo, #Teaching, Boston Marathon Bombing, classroom, famines, floods, global disasters, Goodness, Malala, reading, Students, wars

Mar 28, 2013 Essays on Music and Musicians, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes, Teaching and Learning

What Does it Mean to Be a Teacher?
©By Vijaya Sundaram
March 28th, 2013

It means that you:

Give unstintingly of your attention to your student or students who are there to learn from you.

Not allow dislike, prejudice or frustration to mar your interactions, even if a student makes it VERY hard.

Don’t give in to despair when confronted with failure, either on the part of your students to understand, acknowledge, absorb or appreciate the beauty of what you’re offering, or what they’re learning, or on your own part for not always having been all of the things you wanted to be, from time to time — because we’re all exhausted, all human, all prone to retire from time to time, to lick our wounds and self-heal.

Find that which is pure, child-like (with a capacity for wonder, questioning and curiosity) in your student, and teach THAT person within the student.

Listen to, and learn from, your students.

Always remember you’re a conduit (through whom all of the knowledge, learning and understanding flow)  not the repository of all of those things.

Love, always love your student, love your own teacher, and love the subject you’re teaching deeply and completely.

****************************************************************

I was thinking of these things after I had a long talk with my husband, teacher extraordinaire. 

He had been feeling low, because a student had omitted mentioning him as his music teacher on his website (and had shamelessly mentioned more famous and well-known names in the field).  My husband wasn’t expecting gratitude, just acknowledgement, because in this field, as in any great field of artistic and soulful endeavor, one MUST acknowledge  one’s teachers, especially those with whom one has spent a significant amount of time.

My husband is primarily a teacher of Indian classical music (among other types of music).  He had taught this student thoughtfully, devotedly and completely, over a relatively long period of time, and didn’t expect much back from him.  The student was talented, but arrogant, puffed up with a spurious sense of self-importance.  We had already seen signs of that while he used to come to our place nine years or so ago, but we dismissed that as the cockiness of youth.

There is no way to get around this, no matter how much one might try and dismiss it as a passing wind which we “respect not.”  To find that one is consciously omitted rankles.  One would have to be a sage to brush it off. 

That student’s rank ingratitude and puffed-up self-importance will cause him grief one day. Every person has to face his or her Karmic duty. 

What was my husband’s response to feeling low about all this, plus other worries? 

This: 

I have taught many people; I have always tried to give appropriately to the individual student rather than use prefabricated lessons or curricula.

No two people want or need the same thing. But everyone needs music.

The world’s parlous condition increases our need for song. I sometimes become discouraged…but singing fortifies me and reminds me that I’m just one link in a chain that reaches farther back in time than any of us can imagine.

I have had so many great teachers in my life; I’m remembering them….while thinking of my students. If I cannot give what I know to my students, my teachers’ love and labor was in vain. My teachers loved me. I love my students. That’s how it works.

Tags: #Journal Entry, #Learning, #Teaching, Students, teachers

Mar 24, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes

Ramblings about Courage and Fear

©Vijaya Sundaram

March 24th 2013

My daughter is in the next room, playing “My Grandfather’s Clock,” which my husband is teaching her on the guitar, and it’s sweet to hear her trying to keep her composure while learning something new.  She’s sounds good, very good, but she doubts herself at times, and that’s part of what she is learning to figure out.

This is because learning anything new is an unnerving thing for her in some ways, as it is for many of us, although we grown-ups have, through years of practice, managed to stifle that feeling.

Or, should I just speak for myself and my daughter?

Oddly enough, this is what makes her (and me) try new things, almost with a defiant upthrust chin, as if to say, “Well, so what if I’m afraid to fail at this?  It doesn’t matter!  I’m going to try it (although I might protest, weep and moan along the way)!”

So, she sails into new things now, with a much more cheerful, confident air than in the past, because the past informs the present, and the present gears itself up for the future.  So, she is able to look back, when I remind her, and see how she’s changed and grown in all the things that used to cause her nervousness or outright dread.  Children always want to triumph over their younger selves.  That’s the only form of competition worth pursuing.

And I can try and give her a little bit of the wisdom I’ve gleaned from my own personal learning experiences.

Teaching myself guitar, finding a sitar teacher, applying to college in a city where I knew no one, except my family … all of these were things I felt proud of accomplishing, because I had conquered an unnamed, deeply buried fear (and I won’t bother analyzing why that might be — it might just be encoded in my DNA).

Flying solo to America only twenty days after having married my husband, who had had to return a day earlier on an already booked ticket (from having come to stay for a year in India) — that felt like an act of courage.   Leaving behind my family and everything I had ever known, and flying far away to greet an unknown future in a new land where a whole new life awaited me was exciting, yes, and caused me a pang of pain, yes, but I felt quite valorous beyond all that.

Finding work in a place where I knew no one and nothing — that felt like a leap in the dark.  Sure, I spoke English and knew rock n’ roll, jazz and folks songs, but that had nothing to do with the real America I met, so different from the America I read about.  I remember I seemed and felt confident, but had nightmares those first couple of years.  Here was a recurring dream:  A faceless beast chased me up and down a nightmare house in my dreams, caused me the utmost terror for several nights, but one night, I had had enough.  In my dream, I said, “Enough!  Time to actually see this beast.”  I turned around, and to my astonishment, the beast melted away.  There was nothing to face.  (How clichéd and symbolic was that?!  That was quite a good nightmare, come to think of it!)

When I played music on the streets of Cambridge and in the subways of Cambridge and Boston in the 90s, and performed music with my husband in concerts, I felt brave.

Leaving my job after nearly ten years, and enrolling at a nearby well-known college for an M.Ed. in Middle School English was a leap in the dark.  I had no idea whether the job market was good or not.  Applying for a job immediately afterwards, learning to learn from, listen to, and teach, American teenagers, so different from any I had encountered in my own country — all of these acts were like falling out of a blue void, with a parachute, yes, but one that I wasn’t quite sure would work.  It did work, of course, but I had to work harder than I’d ever done in my life.

Looking back, I remember feeling suffused with a blend of immortal strength and mortal terror.   This new world, this new life was strangely scary and quite absorbing.  I was fascinated and confident, nervous and diffident.  I immersed myself completely in whatever I took on.  And I felt strong and invincible through all the fears that seemed to dog my footsteps like that dreaded beast in my nightmares.

(Taking on new things does not extend to certain kinds of activities, however.  I draw the line at skiing, snowboarding, skydiving, swimming and surfing.  In fact, I will eschew many dangerous physical activities, because, for some unfathomable reason, strange as it might seem, I like being alive.)

Courage comes in many forms.  We know that.

My daughter is brave.  She learned swimming (which I can barely do), and went through it all, even though she absolutely hated it at first.   She likes it now and swims quite well.  She was nervous about learning to bike.  She bikes well now.  She was frightened of stilting.  Now, she absolutely adores it.

She was nervous about learning to read, but she has loved to be read to since she was a baby.  I read to her endlessly, patiently, lovingly.  Suddenly, between five and a half and six years of age, she became an inveterate and passionate reader on her own.  Now, she reads Asterix, Tintin, the first Harry Potter book (I’m not allowing her to read the others on her own yet, although she can), James Thurber’s short essays, A.A. Milne and Enid Blyton books, the Wizard of Oz, Heidi, and so on, apart from reading books about the elements, American history, astronomy, dinosaurs.

She was hesitant about learning Indian dance, but didn’t want to give up when she began.  She is devoted to it now.  She didn’t want to join the local Drama / Theater place (I don’t know anything about acting, Mom, Dad!  she said.  Try it.  If you don’t like it, we’ll stop, was our response.)  The result, of course, was predictable.  She really enjoys her Drama Club.  She didn’t want to learn guitar, although she has always been highly musical, and sings beautifully.  She loves guitar now, and plays it well.

So you see, a pattern emerges.  It sounds trite, I know, but  seeing my daughter take on new things (with our encouragement) brings it home afresh to me:  Face your fears.  Don’t give up.  Who cares what the world thinks?  It’s what you think of yourself that matters most.   Learning to love learning, and loving life matters most of all.

My daughter doesn’t like to quit, and neither do I.  We hate to think of ourselves as quitters.   We love to learn.  We love life.

And she will go on to face more complicated fears than the ones I faced, because the world tilts always in that direction.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Daughter, #Learning, Face your fears, home-schooling, mother, parenting, struggling

Mar 7, 2013 Essays: On Books, Art, Literary Appreciation and so on, Reading, Writing, Thinking, Teaching and Learning

 OR: A Day in the Life of this Eighth Grade English Teacher

Today was a day of non-academic messiness.

We had finished John Steinbeck’s book The Pearl almost two weeks ago, but were working rather late on the projects, because the materials I’d ordered would take that long to arrive.  So, after their essay on the book, we moved on to our Holocaust unit, but revisited The Pearl in an oblique manner, in order to work on our “Personal Pearl” project.

In the book by Steinbeck (a terribly, terribly sad book, with almost no joy in it, except at the start), the protagonist, Kino, an indigenous pearl fisherman near the Sea of Cortez on the Pacific side of Mexico, finds a pearl, which they call “the Pearl of the World.”  The pearl seems, to Kino, to be a sort of crystal ball in which he can see his future — he’s very poor, and his idea of wealth consists of seeing himself, his wife, Juana, and their son Coyotito, all clad in beautiful new clothes.  He envisions himself getting properly married in a church, and getting their son baptised.  He sees his son getting an education, and reading from “a great book.”  He imagines a harpoon to replace the one he’d lost, and finally, he visualizes a rifle.  He shares his dreams with his neighbors, and this last one makes all of them hold their breath in amazement.  Ultimately, through some terrible events (which I cannot divulge), all that he finds himself with at the end of the book is the rifle.  All his other dreams vanish, and when he looks into the pearl, all he sees is the recent dead past, along with the scenes of suffering he’s had to undergo in his need to keep his pearl in order to sell it in the big city (as opposed to the greedy and underhanded pearl dealers in town, who had offered him a pittance for it).  Thus, the pearl becomes an extension of Kino’s past, present and future, an outward screen onto which all his dreams and hopes get projected.  It has always been and will always be only a pearl, but to Kino, it’s a symbol of all the misfortune and calamities he’s suffered.  The only recourse he has, at the end, is to part with it, and the way he does it, is as inevitable as the ending of a book of this nature can be.

It’s far from pleasant in parts, but the rhythm of Steinbeck’s prose is akin to hearing poetry spoken aloud by a singer.  The cadence of his language, the choice of words, the sentence structures, the metaphors — these make my imagination swoon.

But because the book is so sad, and our essay on it is so serious in tone, I try to offset that by having students work on personal pearls of their own (which is accompanied by a lighter, more personal essay).  These, however, are pearls which they create, and which reflect some aspect of  themselves (unlike Kino, who found his pearl, and it became his soul).  These pearls symbolize the work they do.  I ask them to imagine that we humans are all busily creating pearls out of the travails or struggles of our lives, much like an oyster would create a pearl to deal with the irritation caused by sand in its bivalves.

Thus, today, my students were going to make a “personal pearl” with small spheres I’d bought for the purpose.  On this “pearl” they were supposed to glue colorful pieces of tissue paper, and add details about some of their past achievements, or things they were proud to have accomplished — as public as winning a trophy, learning to sky-dive, learning to do several back-flips, or land an A in Spanish or French, and also as private as conquering fears or bad habits, becoming better at staying focused, speaking up in public, or gaining new confidence in themselves.

So, you can imagine the scene:

~A total of one hundred and seven students working on this project, arriving in groups of twenty or twenty-two, every forty-seven minutes (I teach five class periods), full of energy, full of the potential for deep mischief, full of enthusiasm at doing something different in an English class (Really?  We get to glue things, and mess around?), and ready to tackle anything.

~Controlled chaos erupting in the back of the classroom, with PILES of beautiful tissue paper,  shiny mylar paper, plus big containers of the smelliest, nastiest, stickiest but really fast-drying, and easily washable glue that leaves glued-on surfaces shiny and smooth: The charmingly named Mod-Podge.

~Chatter and cooperation, some occasional foolishness, which was quickly quelled by someone’s coevals and group pressure to do a nice job.

~And LOTS of paper strewn about everywhere — on desks, falling in slow-motion to the floor, lying in rainbow heaps on computer counters, decorating an occasional crazy student, or an object that’s not meant to be decorated.

This was our day, and it was good.

I like chaos, actually.  I don’t mind it at all.  People, when they know they’re going to make a nice, happy mess, change in behavior around each other.  They feel and act freer, somehow.  There’s lots of kidding, plenty of good-natured teasing, lobbed back-and-forth sallies between teacher and students, and license for me to say things like, “What on earth is THAT?!  Surely, you’re not thinking of handing that in!  It’s terrible!  It’s so awful I’m going to faint.  Save me!”

I can be terribly sexist (against boys — sorry!).  “Look at the girls, boys!  Check out how nicely they’re doing it.  Learn from them.  How come boys have NO clue how to be neat?  Huh?”  At this point, some boy will then hold up his beautifully worked-on “pearl” and I’ll pretend to reel my words back in, and eat them.  Sorry!  Sometimes, we can be wrong, you know!

So, the day unfolded.  I collected late homework assignments, had parent conferences during our mid-day Team Meeting time (saw FOUR parents within forty-five minutes, and all of the meetings were positive ones — yay!).

I opened a window, and the wind blew in promptly making little eddies of colored paper swirl up in the air, before I wrestled them into submission, while flakes of snow whirled around outside in the little courtyard below.  I wiped down the tables three times today, and swept my floor with my nifty little broom three times as well.  Otherwise, the scene that would have met the custodian’s eyes this evening would have made him faint right away.  And if he didn’t revive, it would have been on my head.

And I wouldn’t like that.

Besides, no one would like to walk into my classroom tomorrow morning, and find a passed-out, or worse, deceased custodian on the floor.  That’s a no-no!  (I mean, how would we concentrate on our studies?)

Such are the kinds of things we teachers have to worry about in order to keep our jobs!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Learning, #Teaching, A Day in the Life of an English Teacher, John Steinbeck, mild attempts at humor, Personal Pearl, Silliness, Snark, The Pearl

Mar 6, 2013 Teaching and Learning

Teaching, not Categorizing
©By Vijaya Sundaram
March 5, 2013

Today, having filled them out carefully over the weekend, the teachers in the Eighth Grade passed out the “High School Course Selection / Recommendation Forms” to our students.

This is always a big deal.

There are sighs of relief, fanning the air around the faces of some students: 

I made it, after all!

Oh, thank goodness. I won’t have to face my (WASP, or Irish-American, or Italian-American, or Russian, or Chinese, or Japanese, or Indian, or Pakistani, or Bagladesi, or Iranian, or French, or German) mother / father / grandmother / grandfather!

Thank goodness I won’t have to tell my [Harvard-educated, MIT-mentored, Stanford-schooled, Yale-feted, Berkeley-breathed (not the cartoonist!), Columbia-crested, Wellesley-weaned, Brown-begotten, Princeton-pampered] parents that I didn’t make it.

Thank goodness, I won’t have to tell my (Boston-Brahmin establishment-upholding, endowment-elevating, charity-donating, old-money-possessing) family members that I am in a middle or lower-level class.

Then, there are doubts in the form of winged question marks fluttering like moths around the heads of other students:

Am I no good then? Does she hate me, after all the time I spent, nodding and smiling, answering and participating, working hard, stressing out, sleeping less? Does she? What was the point of all this?

Am I no good then? Do I lack the brains? Do I not read and write well enough for her? Does she think I can only do this much, and no more?

Am I no good then? Does she think I cannot read John Steinbeck, because I didn’t understand the language in The Pearl? (That book is so hard! How can she expect me to understand it? And it was a book I didn’t like anyway!)

Then, there are always tears held in check in the case of some students. Sometimes, the dam breaks. The floodgates are opened. One could drown in their sadness.  (This hasn’t happened this year, but it could!):

I knew it. I’m no good, really. She’s just confirmed it for me. I am a dunce. I always was. I wonder what my I.Q. is! It must be in the low 80s. I’m sure of it!

I knew it. My mother / father / sister / brother / other teachers all told me that I didn’t really have it in me to do this, and I don’t. I’m never going to be good at anything. I might as well give up.

I knew it! I should just stick to skateboarding or hanging out downtown with my friends. It’s much easier. Doesn’t really demand work. I’m not good at thinking, anyway. When I’m sixteen, I’ll quit school!

There are the jubilant ones.
There are the doubtful ones.
There are the resigned and defeated ones.
There are the belligerent ones (Not any so far, this year).
There are the indifferent ones.
There are the realistic ones.

And through all of this, I feel terrible.

I never believed in levels for my subject– not at this grade, anyway! They’re only children, I say to myself. Give them the work, yes, but give them a break! Their brains are growing. Their tastes are changing. Their maturity is slowly unfurling its wings.

They’re only just beginning to understand that critical thinking isn’t about criticism.

In their book, up until now, or at least for several of them, inferring was the same as implying.

In their book, up until now (and probably still), to talk things over between themselves is the same as talking things over among themselves, because after all, all teenagers know that two is the same as more than two. Right?

In their book, to be beside themselves because they are roundly defeated in an argument is the same as the fact that an irrelevant factoid might be besides the point in a rational discussion, which fact pointed out by someone might make them cry. What’s the difference?  they might argue. They lost! That’s the point!  (This is the juncture where the chance to down a couple of aspirin is not to be passed up).

To be teenagers of thirteen and fourteen is to love a person, a subject, a teacher, a friend, a movie, a book, a celebrity, a cupcake, a dress, a hairstyle, a pet, a T.V. show, pasta, pizza, burgers, soccer, dance, music, musicians, actors, actresses, passionately, devotedly, equally … until they hate some of those same things equally.

They can indulge in rational thought, sure, just as they can call upon logic to prove points and impress grownups. They can don sensible behavior, like a school uniform, only to quickly lapse into absolute irrationality, stripping their minds of any sense, and donning foolishness, like those skimpy clothes that girls keep in their lockers (away from the eyes of parents) in order to change into them in the Girls’ Bathroom, and walk down the hallways in scandalous attire, only to be caught and made to change back into sensible clothes by the Assistant Principals or the School Nurse. 

Keeping all this in mind, I can (knowing that it will probably not register) use logic, trusting to their put-on rationality, and they will nod miserably and agree with what I’m saying, and then go home, cry to their mothers and say, “I hate her!  She hates me! She put me in the __________ level!”  Their mothers will say, “She doesn’t hate you, but you can put on your best behavior and be sure to make all your work pretty.  I’ll hire you a tutor, and you can bring your grades up.  Then, we can appeal her recommendation!”

How can I explain to them that these recommendations aren’t personal? That I spent hours looking over their grades, their essays, their tests and their quizzes, and mentally reviewing their class participation and accuracy of responses to thought-provoking questions? That I worry that I may have not been fair to someone, and thus go over my recommendations even more carefully?  That I might be condemning someone to feel like she or he is a failure, because she or he hasn’t been recommended for the __________ level?

So, the day passes. However, so far, no tears this year. Tomorrow, the day after, and all of the next few weeks, there will be a flood of emails, requests, pleas to change my recommendation. In some cases, the recommendation will change, if they improve between now and May.

Until then, we labor on, mightily. We hope the children won’t hate us. We don’t hate them. We love them. We want them to feel successful. Unfortunately, hidden in all these recommendations is the underlying feeling of unworthiness for students.

If the levels didn’t carry with them a number (credits in the High School) and a social stigma (idle chatter at suburban cocktail parties, status-related boasting, worry about college admissions, you-name-it), it would be wonderful. It would simply mean that people go where they can grow.

We teachers do all this in good faith.

The system, however, is ranged against good faith. The system needs numbers. Numbers are helpful. They can be used to impress, justify, silence. They can be manipulated to show a slanted viewpoint. They can be used to frighten and convince. Sometimes they tell the truth.

And sometimes, they are the enemy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End of My Rant~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Learning, Being teenagers, Course Selections, Rant, Recommendation for High School, Regret, Social Status, teachers, Teaching teenagers