Apr 7, 2016 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings

Tags: #Activism, #Anuradha Koirala, #Homeschooling, #Mahatma Gandhi, #Ophelia Dahl, #Paul Farmer, #Reconciling selfishness with altruism, #Teaching, #WorkingforOthers'Happiness

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

Jul 20, 2015 Changes, Teaching and Learning

So, I switched over to a new site that I’m trying to set up, but it’s somewhat frustrating, because I’m so stubborn, and won’t watch tutorials and such!

Anyway, it’s at this site: http://magicsurrealist2013.me  (I also call myself StrangeLander2015).

I haven’t written anything much recently, because this year, I was mentally focused on the process of extricating myself from seventeen years of being a school-teacher.

School ended in late June — and I was fêted very nicely by my immediate co-workers (the other teachers on my Team), the Guidance Counselors, my English Dept., the school-system, the Union, etc.  Plenty of nice words, gifts and cards to prove I existed there for all this time.  In return, I placed “thank-you” cards in the mail-boxes of most of my colleagues (missed a few, have to remedy that), and generally did all that I was supposed to do.

I was surprised, grateful, pleased and moved by what people said, even those who had not been nice to me in the past.

After getting rid of most of my papers, and still managing to bring home boxes and boxes of my stuff in early July, I cleaned up my classroom, stripped the walls of any residual tape and gunk, wiped windows, my desk, all the book-shelves and cupboards, and generally made the class quite pristine for the incoming teacher, who is very grateful, and whom I really like.  I’ve also left her supplies and books, and lots of useful copies of poems, lessons and grammar sheets in files in the file cabinets.  I returned the (wiped-down of files) school computer, my keys, ID card and grade-book.

I believe I am TRULY done.

The last few years had exhausted and diminished my reserves my strength.  I wanted to write, to help others, to be with my family, to be free of the toxicity of school.  Yes, I was still enthusiastic when I taught, yes, I was still creative with my students, but I had nothing left in reserve.  I needed to recharge.  A few unpleasant things happened to me at school in the past couple of years which reinforced this feeling.

I needed to leave.

My husband and daughter supported my need to leave, and because of that, I knew I could.  And now that I have left, I am truly free.

It’s so liberating!

But now, what shall I do?

I’ve begun tutoring, and I love that, because I love teaching.  I’ll keep doing that.  However, what I really want to do is write.  I keep wanting to write, but feel stuck.  Perhaps, I need more time to lick my wounds.  School, great though teaching was, and nicely though my administration had treated me, had wounded me.  Over the years, I put up with barely concealed ethnocentrism on the part of certain people, pointed barbs by others, outright hostility from a very few.  I dealt with bullies (certain colleagues), patronizing (certain parents), hypocritical and occasionally alarming behavior (certain students).  I am known as a very good, even great, teacher by many of my students and parents, but school is not a place to stand out, whether you are a student OR a teacher.

I also want to serve.  It’s part of what I am.  I want to do more for those who really need education — the poor, the abandoned.  I have no experience in this area.  I intend to find out after I recover from school.

I am a free thinker.  I am not a follower.  I despise edubabble, and the random, prating nonsense in the name of education.  I refuse to administer standardized tests.  What I want is this:  I want to be free.  I’d like to serve.  I’d like to write.  I want be a great writer and satisfy me.  I know I’m a good one.  I have to have time to hone my skills in this area, to know whether I’m any good.

Right now, I feel somewhat dispirited, but I know this will pass when I write something I like.

Meanwhile, I’m re-charging myself right now — sleeping, walking, taking my child to her summer Circus Camp, playing with child and dog, getting back into West African drumming, singing madrigals at night with husband and daughter, and meditating (I cannot believe I’m actually doing that last bit — no, I am not part of some cult, just teaching myself to focus breathing and energy, and it’s nice!).

Wherever I go, I’m around people who seem happy to see me, don’t shield their eyes mentally, don’t narrow their eyes at me, seek me out when I go places, and want to talk to me.

This surprises me, because I felt (despite all the good words of colleagues and so on) lonely and misunderstood at school.  This is not to say that it was always so — I have formed some very close friendships over the years and my friends are the ones who helped me survive.  Also, my students were fine — I always got along famously with most of them.  While I worked at the school, I knew what I was: an improbability, a Hindu with a dot, an accent that people misidentified as British (or so some told me), and an obviously literate and well-spoken person with a history and a culture from a poor, but ancient country in a very self-referential, very self-satisfied, wealthy, mostly white school district in this country.

I hope what I underwent there all these years will give me the gift of stories, at least, so it will not all have been a waste of some of that angst that I experienced.

Meanwhile, I cannot believe my luck.  I escaped the net.  I survived.  I still have another life stretching out in front of me.  I intend to use it well.

And I’m here.

Thanks for reading this rambling piece — I’ve not organized my thoughts here, but I wanted to say something about why I’ve been absent.

~Dreamer of Dreams

Tags: #Teaching, Leaving my job

Jun 28, 2014 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Teaching and Learning

So, did I mention that school was over for me on Wednesday? No? Well, it was.
Two days later, I was still in there, cleaning up, clearing up, wiping surfaces. And I’ll go in on Monday, to put any remaining books in boxes and lug them home.
Only two days later –and I feel so much happier, so much more rested, so far away from the stresses of this tiny, fish-pond of a life that’s called school!
Don’t get me wrong — I LOVE to teach, and always will. But it’s exhausting work, and seemingly endless work. And one has to be a saint and never, ever let anything ruffle one’s feathers.
I am not a saint.

__________________

Dreamer of Dreams

Tags: #Teaching, saint, summer holidays

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

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

Apr 9, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Original Poetry, Reading, Writing, Thinking, Teaching and Learning

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o8jL1BXMdk]

Response to “Pigeon” by Anthony Green

©Vijaya Sundaram

April 9^th, 2013

[The above YouTube video shows the film “Pigeon” by Anthony Green.  This was the prompt I put up today on my “smartboard” in class (we have been studying books set in the Nazi-Holocaust period for the past few weeks).  Students watched this 11-minute film and then we had a discussion about the significance of the different acts of kindness or unkindness in the film.  We also discussed the symbolism in all the visuals (I don’t want to go all school-teacherish on you here), as well as the arresting imagery, acting and directing.

This was followed by a writing assignment.  Students had to write a poem-response to this film, telling the story itself, or using the larger symbolism to zoom in on what moved them.  They were deeply affected by the film, and the poems they came up with were beautiful.

I told them that I, too, would write while they wrote.  So, I managed to write in four out of five of my class periods today.]  Here is the first of the four poems I wrote (unedited, sorry, no time to tweak things.  Will do that later):

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

Shema Yisrael

Response poem to the film “Pigeon”

©Vijaya Sundaram

April 9^th, 2013

Shema Yisrael

Stranded on the island

I await my deliverance

Shema Yisrael

Pigeon at my feet

Crumbs for its survival

Shema Yisrael

I have lost all, lost all

My papers, my self, my life.

Shema Yisrael

I try and sidestep my fate

Waiting is my wasteland

Shema Yisrael

Here are guards, inexorable as death

I die by degrees, in a sweat of fear

Shema Yisrael

Angel in human form sees

My loss, transforms into demoness

Shema Yisrael

I had a wife, and now a new one,

Who beats me about the shoulders.

Shema Yisrael

Guards aim death at her, “Papers!”

She mocks me, her “husband.”

Shema Yisrael

They laugh at us, mock me; they see she

“Wears the pants,” and then they leave.

Shema Yisrael

Bless this angel of mercy, this wife

Who delivered me from death, from hell

Shema Yisrael

May her act not go unnoticed

May she find a place among the angels.

Shema Yisrael

May the pigeons and doves among us

Find their saviors, may they fly in peace.

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

Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad

(Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One)

Disclaimer:  I am not a Jewish person, nor a believer of any sort.  However, I believe deeply in the power of prayer to steady ourselves, when we’re cast afloat, rudderless, on an open sea.  It’s a centering mechanism.  It’s good.  It can only calm us, not hurt us.

Tags: #humanity, #kindness, #NaPoWriMo, #Resistance, #Teaching, Deliverance, Goodness, Mercy, poem-response to film "Pigeon" by Anthony Green, Shema

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 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

Feb 26, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal

So, school was back in session today, after a week-long hiatus, and as usual, I got no sleep at all, despite trying, really trying to get to bed, before 12:00 midnight.  As the hours ticked on into the darkness, and it was one o’clock, and then probably close to two o’clock, I lay there, watching the cars advertise their presence through their trails of light moving mysteriously across the ceiling. Their Dopplerian sounds waxed and waned, like waves coming close and receding into the distance, and I found them all madly distracting.  Yet, they seemed friendly.  Total and utter silence would have suffocated me, considering how awake, yet insanely desperate for sleep I was.  I needed those sounds.

An asonic and aluminescent world would be death.  I imagine all those spirits of the dead weaving about unsteadily through the utter and crushing blackness of non-being, unable to see, hear, feel, speak and touch.  How terrifying!  Poor things!  One day, I’ll be one of them, unless, of course, I push off with both feet towards the stars.

The darkness used to hold terrors for me when I was young, and (shame-facedly, I admit) even into my twenties.  My imagination peopled it with ghosts and demons, and even fantastical creatures out of Hieronymus Bosch or Michael Crichton.  Once I dispensed with the fantastic or the allegorical, I thought that lurking there, just beyond my ken, were humans with malign motives.  I used to lie awake at night, in my teens, after practising sitar or guitar well into the night, or reading and writing into the wee hours, and then trying to get to sleep.  I’d pull the covers right up to my chin, and lie on my back.  My theory was that if something or someone wanted to get at me, it’d have to look me in the eye first — then, it’d be slain cleanly by my vengeful guardian angel, who stood, alert and attentive, beside me.  Fanciful, of course, and considering I was a spiritual atheist, laughable in the extreme.

Thus, the child gets mixed up with the emerging adult inside one’s skin.  Magical thinking rules all.  Reality is always out on a cigarette break, or rolling up its sleeves to greet the day effusively and maniacally.

Meanwhile, my child-self lay in bed, until sleep came, like a gentle mother or perhaps a lover, and soothed me, or took me into its arms.

These days, the darkness does nothing for me.  Not much, anyway.  I am not afraid of spirits or lurkers.  Fantastical monsters have left my imagination for the nonce.   I miss them at times.  I have to be practical, pragmatic, pedestrian.  No flights of fancy, or terror for me.  I miss all that.

However, sometimes, I fancy I see a moving dot or streak of light between my half-shut eyelashes.  A ghost at last, I say welcomingly in my mind.  Then, I open my eyes wide, and realize it’s just a goddamned car on the road far below, tracing its passage across the ceiling.  At other times, I smile at it, and say, It’s just those floaters and flashes of light you sometimes get, when your eyes are overworked. Go to sleep!

Or, perhaps, it’s a ghost.

I used to tell ghosts to keep away and leave me alone.  Now, I miss them.  Still, time enough to be one of them one day, if I so choose.  They need a little oomph and goosing along to keep them from becoming despondent.

On the other hand, they might get too attached, and I would like to detach myself from everything when I die.  I’d float away like a balloon into the outer atmosphere, and contribute my atmosphere to the rest of the thin blanket that protects the earth from death.

And now, it’s eleven o’clock, and I AM jolly well going to sleep early!  I defy the gods of unrest to try and make me budge from my fell purpose.

In eight hours, I’ll be in school again, churning out learning and knowledge and fun and assignments to the assembled throngs.  Makes one cheerful, doesn’t it?

So, goodnight, dear readers, if you’re there.  And if you’re not, goodnight anyway!

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

Tags: #Teaching, back to school, Death and the Maiden, Ghosts, Hieronymus Bosch, Imagination, Insomnia, Sleep, Sleeplessness