May 13, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Teaching and Learning

Being Professional
©By Vijaya Sundaram
May 13th, 2013

Teaching young people can sometimes be rewarding.

Seriously.

The only downside is:  We have to always present our best selves to our students. 

Moodiness is a no-no.  Not good. 

In no profession is the need to present “the face” more present than in the teaching profession.  It’s called “being professional.” 

It’s important.  Leave your own, personal feelings and sensitivities at the door.  Don’t indulge in sarcasm (it’s hard to resist at times, though, especially when one knows one is being manipulated).  Take everything, but everything, at face value, EVEN if it’s a question or a response that is absolutely, blindingly, clearly the result of a calculated attempt by a student to derail and sabotage a class.

Treat that student’s random question as if it’s a matter of absolute interest.  And it is, if you look at it closely, and examine its true motive.  Carefully answer the question posed as if in earnest, but answer the question behind the question.  That is, if you have the time.

Alas, one doesn’t always have the time to do all that.  One succeeds being a perfect person only for the first few months.  After that, one becomes short and curt in one’s responses.  Then, after hearing the curt response, one becomes overcome with remorse within, and swears to not be laconic or ironic.  One has to remind oneself that these are, after all, tender souls, innocent (!) young humans who need nurturing.  One resets oneself to be tender-hearted all over again, only to have some hoodlum in disguise try to tear down one’s lesson, or demolish a feeling of community in the classroom.  That’s okay.  Perhaps, it’s the student’s cry for attention of some sort.  All one needs to do is have a swift, uncompromising consequence — which, doesn’t always happen, because the flow of students is seemingly endless during the day.  Then, later on, one follows up.  Sometimes, that works.

If only that cry for attention by a student were directed in a positive way — as in, responding to a book or a topic being discussed, or general observations about a teaching unit, or about the human condition in general!  Then, one could engage, discuss, have a true dialogue. 

Alas, sometimes, that doesn’t happen.  But then again, it does, at other times.  One mustn’t give up hope.

For sometimes, a student just might remember that she or he was truly difficult, or unresponsive in class, or obnoxious, and apologize years later.  (That has been known to happen, and it’s lovely to have this reminder that one must have faith in the good sense of one’s students.)

Through all this, the teacher does not ever give up, even if, at times, said teacher might get overwhelmed and upset, s/he being human, after all.

For this is what a teacher has to do:  The teacher gets up every morning, girds up his or her loins, and goes into the forefront of something that could either be a joint endeavor, (like people in a submarine that is plumbing the depths in search of who-kn0ws-what), or a battle of wits.  Of course, it should never be a battle, but some like it so.  And some students want it to be so. 

And then, the teacher teaches several hours a day, and grades papers for an equal or greater number of hours.  The teacher is expected to be totally in control of the flow of schedules and information regarding extraneous matters not really related to teaching.  The teacher attends meetings, and shows up to everything dutifully.  The teacher volunteers to take on things unrelated to the actual job, because, well, it’s fun!  The teacher has to always say, “Things are great!” when asked how things are going, because … well, at some level, things are great (even if one might feel cynical on the day-to-day level, the level of bone-deep exhaustion).

All this aside, the teacher must go in every day to work, and love, love, love the subject, and by extension those whom she or he teaches. 

Sleeping three or four hours every night (whether she or he does it willfully, because of some sort of self-destructive urge, or because of school-work, is irrelevant), waking up at an ungodly hour every morning, cudgeling her brain into wakefulness by the repeated application of trimethylxanthine in its liquid, lactic-tinged form, and smiling a warm welcome to all the equally weary children who pour like sluggish streams of molasses, the teacher stands, prepared, poised and punctual.

That is called “being professional.”

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

Tags: #Teaching, Being Professional, school-teacher's musings, Students, teachers, vocation and avocation, What it takes to be a teacher

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 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

Mar 1, 2013 Teaching and Learning

I wrote this poem in December, immediately following the Sandy Hook tragedy.  It completely took me apart.  I took refuge in writing a poem, because that’s all I could do, after those dreadful hours of grieving, to deal with the unthinkable.  Please do read and let me know what you think.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In Memoriam – Sandy Hook

©By Vijaya Sundaram

Written on December 16th, 2012

 

O hold on to your rainbows bright,

O Children of the shadowed Dream.

O hold on to your unicorns, for

Things are not quite what they seem.

 

On the edges lurks the dark

Wedged behind those pretty parks

Run, my child, before it leaps

That monster from the scary deeps.

 

Hold your breath and lift your wings

Catch the breeze under your swing

Jump up high into the air

Live your life, don’t turn a hair.

______________________________

Refrain:

Monsters come and monsters go,

It’s you for whom our sorrow flows.

But we’ll go strong into the night

And whisper hope to make things bright.

______________________________

This world is not for hate and hurt

This world is not for grief and rage

You should be playing in the dirt,

And love your happy, youthful stage.

 

We’ll whisper deep into the morn

We’ll sing a song of love for you

We’ll work for all who have been born

We’ll bring the dawn above to you.

 

Forgive us for the world we’ve made

Forgive us for the sins of trade

Forgive this hateful history

And show us love’s deep mystery.

___________________________

Refrain:

Monsters come and monsters go,

It’s you for whom our sorrow flows.

But we’ll go strong into the night

And whisper hope to make things bright.

_____________________________

 

 

Tags: #Childhood, #Original Poetry, grief, parenting, sandy hook, teachers

Feb 19, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries

The Red Rectangle 
© By Vijaya Sundaram
Written on Thursday, Jan. 25th, 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am an imposter in the world of the real.

Yesterday, I went to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and had an atavistic encounter with art — in the room that contained the “red rectangle.”  I cannot remember the name of the installation artist, because my mind was busily paper-shredding all the petty numbers I had to rustle up to “feed the beast” (that remarkable phrase which my husband kindly created for me when I ranted petulantly about submitting quarterly grades for my eighth graders).  This beast demanded a sacrifice.  Numbers satisfied it.

So, there I sat on a subway train rumbling angrily through Cambridge into Boston, seated beside my Head of the Department of English, while internally stacking up inventive curses against an administration which demanded that we turn our grades in before noon on an “Early Release Day.”

The rest of the afternoon was to be a “professional day,” with the English and History departments taking a trip to the ICA.  Most of us wanted to be back at school, being PROFESSIONAL, and doing our grading without the added pressure of taking the “T” all the way to the waterfront by 12:30. p.m.  Three, tearful, silent meltdowns between school and there and out did not make me look very professional, I admit, but I didn’t care.  Weariness was hugging my bones, and exhaustion was curled up in a fetal position in my cerebral cortex, hiccuping, vibrating in my ganglions.

So, there I was at the ICA, not in the least bit in the mood for modern art, fully prepared to be cynical and criticize everything, just because … and there it was:  The Red Rectangle.

It looked kind.  I looked, hypnotized, into that glowing red rectangle, and walked towards it, thinking, “Is it real?”  It seemed to be a bi-dimensional red thing on the wall, pretending to be art.  I walked closer, impelled, in spite of myself, by its arterial redness, a translucent ruby-red, space-less projection – and bumped into a wall that stopped at my waist.

I put out my hand, thinking, “It’s not real, is it?”  My hand went through the redness, catching air, crimson air that escaped easily.  I had been expecting a wall.  Instead, beyond it was space – a red space, like a room that was hard to see.  It seemed like a cradle for a star or a planet.  It was outer space in an alternate reality.  It carried the primordial promise and message of blood.  It was a womb.  It wasn’t an angry red.  It looked peaceful.

I felt my breath turn into a many-edged diamond in my throat, crystallizing into sharp points. I looked vaguely about me, and everyone who was there seemed to recede into the far reaches of reality.

What was I doing here, on the outside?  I needed to be in there, inside, in that alternate world.  I would make my home there, in a nest of straw, a nest of dreams, and plump myself up, ruffle my feathers, stick my head in softness that was everywhere and nowhere, curl up, and fall fast asleep never to wake up for a hundred years, waking up in dream-time.  I would escape reality forever.  My home was in the land of the unreal, more real to me than this world.

The diamond dissolved.  This was home.
It would be the world of the unreal real.
I would not be an imposter there.

And I would carry that red rectangle back with me, deep within my womb back into the world of the real.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~TheEnd~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Peace, Art, Boston, Dream Time, Dreaming, grades, Institute of Contemporary Art, teachers, womb