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When most people hear that I am a middle school teacher, they sigh and give me that look. You know the one that goes along with, “You are such a trooper.” Yes, middle school sucks. It sucked when I went through it, and that part has not changed.
No one tells you before you walk in the classroom door that most of your day will be spent wrangling and pleading and praying that you don’t say something that will be misconstrued by a parent or media outlet. I usually find myself laughing sometime during the day about what comes out of my mouth in the course of those interesting 7 periods.
Here’s some of what I said today:
“Please don’t kick boys in the knees. Ladies don’t act like that.”
“Yelling is only acceptable at sporting events, to stop someone from running into traffic, or when someone is beating you to death.”
“I guess I just like them better. What kind of question is that?”
“I asked you to please stop talking. I didn’t say anything about acting obnoxious and ignoring me.”
“These excuses are getting really lame. You can come up with something better than this.”
“Wow. You guys are, like, really bad at this whole voting thing.”
“Um, I asked you stand in a circle, not in a weird polygon.”
“Hmph. You know, if you’re going to cheat, you really need to work on your technique. I’m not supposed to be able to see it.”
It makes for a interesting day. Fortunately, I’m laughing today.
I’m sure my header picture tells my current story (check out the two month old date!). Since I don’t have internet access at home, I am limited to posting whenever I have some free time at some other place. I’ve posted some on my other blog, and keep thinking that I need to put something over here. So here’s some of what’s been going on.
Driving home one day this week, my head was swirling with too many thoughts to track. How are we going to pay our bills on my salary? When will I be able to blow dry my hair without fear of keeping someone awake? How much more money is my husband going to spend on the new place? When will he be back at work? How am I going to get my 5th and 7th periods to “buy into” this reading thing? Will I ever convince them that they can trust me? Where can I find the time to formulate a plan to help them?
I was already in tears as I thought about the social obstacles these kids face. The poverty in this town is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I can handle the sights of it, but I am still struggling with some of the hidden rules in their community. They don’t believe they can trust anyone in authority. Education is too abstract a concept because the results are not immediate. They are so far behind their grade level that most of them have just given up. I’ve watched the tears well in their eyes as they share with me their frustrations about learning. They want it, but the social ideas ingrained in them are a formidable stumbling block.
All these ideas were fighting for position in my head, and the whole grand picture of the world for me was filled with sadness and pain and heartache. Yet, I was staring at bright green fields against a striking blue sky background. This is life—the great paradox. It’s growth and stagnation. Darkness and light. Beauty and distortion. Mess and order. There were no whys in my head, just the knowledge that this is what it is.
That’s when I was aware of the presence of God. His crazy love is built right into the mess of life. It’s the only thing that makes any of this make sense. God is here in the midst of all this chaos around me…and you. We don’t always need answers, we just need to know and trust in the greater scheme around us. It made me think of this song:
We believe in God, and we all need Jesus.
‘Cause life is hard, and it might not get easier.
But don’t be afraid to know who you are,
Don’t be afraid to show it.
That about sums it up for me.
P.S. Ohhh….I almost forgot my big surprise this week! I will soon be receiving a copy of Amy Grant’s new book, Mosaic, so I can read it and write a review. I am part of the “blog tour”. I cannot wait!
Here’s a discussion I had today with some seventh-going-into-eighth graders getting ready to make strawberry shortcake.
“When you get into your groups, assign a new role. You cannot be the same thing you were the last time. That means everyone needs a different job.”
“Miss, I was the reader last time, and they are making me be the reader again.”
“Well, you can’t be the reader again. Mary, what is your job right now?”
“I’m the mixer.”
“Okay, well Sarah was the reader last time. She cannot be the reader again.”
“But I’m the mixer.”
“Fine, but Sarah cannot be the reader again.”
“But I’m the mixer and Donna’s the supply person. I was the supply person last time, and Donna was the mixer last time.”
“Okay, but Sarah was the reader last time, and she cannot be the reader again today.”
“I’m confused.”
“I don’t care if you’re confused or not. Go back and change jobs again so that Sarah is NOT the reader.”
“But…”
“Go!”
Tonight was the 8th grade dance. I strutted inside, looking around the dance floor, openly pretending to not see my students (who were playing the same game). Someone called my name, and as I turned around to wave, a kid plowed backwards into me. He popped my cheekbone with his elbow or fist…I’m not sure of the body part, but I know it hurt. It’s still a little sore. Back in 1991, at the last 8th grade dance I attended, I would have been mortified and spent the rest of the evening staring into Lake Mirror and holding back tears. This time, I took in my student’s laughing faces and joined in. I meant it. Then I ran around telling the story as many times as possible so I could laugh even more.
Weird little tidbit about me: I don’t care for fiction. Maybe one day I’ll get into all the ins and outs of it, but the bottom line is that real life is just infinitely more fascinating to me. Hmm…I get the feeling I’ve mentioned this before.
So I’ve been having fun spending a little bit of my gift card each Tuesday, which is the only day of the week I am anywhere near not one, but two Barnes & Noble stores. Here are today’s purchases: a vegetarian cookbook, Kurt Cobain’s journal, and a book on the history of the calendar/seasons. I forced myself to leave behind a book about the “bloody history of knights and pirates” and a collection of poetry.
Sigh. I can’t read any of them yet because I had a stack of papers to grade and international shipping to figure out.
Today’s Bliss: Reading my students’ spontaneous prose on the topic “NAMES” and telling the story of the time my name was Shaniqua.
Part of teaching 8th grade, I’m told, is that I am required to do a unit on the WW2 Holocaust. I put this off until the very end of the year because I had a difficult time deciding just how to present the topic in an unbiased way. The heart of my teaching method is showing my students how to find facts in emotionally charged arguments and form their opinions based on the facts.
I finally decided to let them read “The Diary of Anne Frank.” The play presents a perfect opportunity to discuss how dramatizations are adapted. We’ve watched interviews with survivors and will be reading some of Anne’s essays that are not part of the diary. Next week we will wrap it all up with a exploration of genocide around the world and more discussions about free speech.
We all really needed a break the last few days; this topic is draining. Yesterday and today I showed them the black and white “Diary of Anne Frank” movie. You know the one. I have quite a personal history with the movie beginning in the 6th grade when I saw it at school. In 8th grade, I read the play and watched the movie again. That same year, I taped it off the Disney Channel (back in the day when it was a subscription channel and they ran those free weekends for you to preview the quality programming). I LOVED that movie, and for the following year, I woke up just about every Saturday morning to watch the tape and write in my own diary. The story captivated me.
It’s fun to see that kind of love spread to another person. Five of my girls–the tough, street wise ones–spread out on the floor and violently “shhhd” everyone during the movie. They were captivated. Their mouths curved into smiles as the love story between Anne and Peter progressed. Their eyes grew wide and mouths gaped when they thought the families had been caught by the police. They laughed at Anne’s antics and screamed at her when she was mean to her mother. I think I almost saw a few tears.
The afternoon was just as much fun. It’s a large group filled with such a wide array of characters that I could never completely describe them. Like me, they are verbal…and quick…and downright funny. Here’s some of our exchanges:
During the scene of Anne and Peter’s first “date”.
“What’s he doing to her hand?”
“Um, isn’t he holding it?”
“No, he’s moving the pen across it.”
I had to get up and see just what was going on. “Oh, come on, that’s the poor boy’s move!”
Burst of laughter. “What kind of move is that?”
I look around to see a few of them experimenting with this technique and reporting to me that it didn’t work. The scene ends shortly after this. One boy exclaimed, “THAT was a date? That’s the shortest date I’ve seen.”
I couldn’t resist. “Really? And just how many dates have YOU seen?
We laughed even more just a few minutes later when just as Anne and Peter were about to kiss (all I heard today was, “Are they going to kiss?”), someone on the floor adjusted the backpack under their neck and unplugged the t.v.
On top of all this, three girls ran up to me between classes, just bursting at the seams, with comments about “To Kill a Mockingbird.” This is my all-time favorite book, and it was so much fun to get into such fascinating discussions as how much we dislike Aunt Alexandra, Atticus’ parenting styles, and the creepiness of Boo Radley wrapping a blanket around Scout during Miss Maudie’s fire.
There’s my bliss today…my hope for next week. And I so desperately need these moments in the midst of my chaos.
