teacher

afraid of help? seek a supporter, maybe a champion

/ Elizabeth / Leave a comment

sometimes I am afraid of help, of asking for help, of being seeing to need help. my brain will tell me the following:  needing help is weakness. it’s showing lack. it’s deficiency. it’s vulnerability. it’s showing a soft underbelly. now someone will know that I don’t know it all, have it all. sometimes it’s not all self-contained and together in here. 

and that’s fine to feel afraid. fear is part of life. unfortunately. but we all need to find the right kind of help. not a “helper,” who is using help as a form of control or to externalize their own anxieties about you or about failure or about whatever is going on in their brainscape. and not an I-told-you-so-er. definitely not one of those. but a supporter. the person who comes in and stands beside you, solid, so you can lean as much as you need for as long as you need, and when you’re okay – you’re rested, recovered, reset – the supporter moves out of that position into their usual place in your life. they are back to spouse, friend, cousin, neighbor, co-worker. and you don’t feel like you did something wrong to ask for help. the soft underbelly might be one of their favorite parts of you, in fact. the supporter is there to support. and that’s that. 

sometimes the supporter turns out to be a champion. they are just as excited as you are that you are trying something new – taking a risk, being vulnerable and brave. and with each attempt they are solid. your success or failure doesn’t flag their enthusiasm for your enthusiasm. they want to hear your stories of your attempts. they want to revel in the wins and sympathize with the mistakes. and it’s even more special to me if that supporter-turned-champion is an expert at the thing I am just trying out. there is a magic there – and it took me a long while to really allow and then feel that magic. 

when an expert admires your first clumsy attempts at the thing they love and know so well. it’s like time folds backwards on itself and they are back at their starting line again, seeing their own beginning steps through your beginner’s eyes. they are seeing it all anew and loving it all again for the first time. your success becomes their success. they are suggesting and supporting out of love. because you are falling in love with their love, and it’s so exciting and beautiful. the help and support and encouragement is real and deep and sincere because they know. they were there a long time ago, taking their first steps just like you are, and they loved it then and they love it now and they want you to be great at it too and love it as much as they do. and nobody says those words aloud. but I feel it when a supporter becomes a champion, my champion. even for a moment. 

i’ve felt it for my students they’ve written something beautiful, questioned deeply, lost themselves in a book. I feel awake through their awakeness. and I’ve felt the same when a champion has seen my beginner’s efforts and it lights them up. they are alive in the process and the trying and the growing. the champion is seeing me sing my seeds awake, and they are stepping in to create the harmonies. it’s an inspiration loop. a love loop. for the thing we are working so hard to do, for being in the moment with it, fully immersed. in the truest sense of the word, it is wonderful. 

so yes, it is hard to ask for help from people who will help begrudgingly or anxiously or scoldingly. and it’s a moment of miracle when a champion steps forward to support. and when it happens to you, be soft. allow it. let it in. it can be beautiful for both of you.  

Read Aloud Series, Book 6: A Series of Unfortunate Events – The Bad Beginning

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Ah, how I love to read this book aloud. So many fun voices, especially for the evil Count Olaf and kindly but mostly ineffectual Mr. Poe. There are lots of literary references that the kids don’t necessarily get (e.g., Mr. Poe, the Baudelaire children) but I like to know that whenever I pick up this book, those winks to the adult reader are lurking. Speaking of lurking, the book’s tone is so distinctly dry and gloomy it really pulls the kids who are listening into the world of the Baudelaire children – a world of danger and uncertainty.

But let me back up to the bad beginning. There are three children, Violet, Klauss, and Sunny. Their parents are killed suddenly and so they are left orphaned. Mr. Poe is the executor of their estate and, following their parents’ written will, they’ve been sent to live with their closest living relative, Count Olaf. As the story progresses things become more dire for the children and include a daring escape from a tower and outwitting the villains with an ingenious ploy.

As we read, students wonder about who will save the Baudelaire children and how no adults have noticed their distress. Throughout the novel, Violet, Klauss, and Sunny work together and live by their wits to maneuver through their difficult circumstances. Ideally the children listening feel the tiny seed planted that suggests that they too can save themselves if the going gets tough.

Time and again I return to The Bad Beginning for adventure, for excitement, and a chance to tap into the students’ imaginations – for their minds to imagine themselves as the heroes of their own stories – and for the pleasure of introducing them to the first in a long series of books about the Baudelaires.

The Bad Beginning at 57th Street Books

The Bad Beginning at Semicolon Books

Read Aloud Series, Book 5:  The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

/ Elizabeth / 1 Comment

Oh Edward. He starts out as such an unlikeable character:  a three-foot-tall, white china rabbit with a full wardrobe, complete with footwear and hats. He’s also unrelatable since the kids don’t really play with those types of toys anymore. That’s where my own read aloud and storytelling comes in, and I sell it to them a little. They eventually get into it. 

Edward is lost at sea, buried in garbage, thrown from a train, and saved from the brink of death. Like Frindle, there is another wonderful twist at the end that has big payoffs for the kids — and they really react when it comes. There’s also a lovely one-page Coda at the end that recaps the entire story plus a little fast-forwarding, which helps to remind the students of Edward’s full journey, inside and out. 

One of the best quotes of the book:  

“I am done with being loved,” Edward told her. “I’m done with loving. It’s too painful.”

“Pish,” said the old doll. “Where is your courage?”

This is a story that slowly and gently unfolds. It’s about love and regret and finding our way home. 

The Read Aloud Series is a review of the series of books I used to read aloud to my third grade students every year after lunch. The exact order and titles changed somewhat over the years, but these are the ones that were most beloved, both for the kids as listeners and for me as the read aloud reader. Many afternoons our 15-minute read aloud time would stretch into 20, 30, sometimes as long as 45 minutes, as the kids begged to hear more of a story, or we discussed what a character did, or I reread difficult passages, or diagrammed family trees and plot lines for them. I can say that my gift as a teacher was, and still is, my enthusiasm for a good story, and these are the books that have brought me a great deal of joy in sharing with young readers over the years. 

on the process, Jan 29 to Feb 4

/ Elizabeth / Leave a comment

so, up front: I didn’t write like I said I would. this week I was very tired and so I took off a day from work to rest and I spent an entire day on the weekend just on the couch reading and resting, too. I think that’s what I needed. it’s hard to listen to teenagers (as their teacher) and be calm and supportive and warm and thoughtful and present day after day. so I rested. and today (Monday) was probably one of the best days I’ve had with my students in a long time. do I wish I also had the energy to write and be creative, as well? yes, of course. but that’s all I could manage this week. and I’m learning to be okay with not doing it all.

I did enough. and I will try again tomorrow.

Read Aloud Series, Book 4: Frindle

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This is a book that the kids kind of don’t like at first. But I ignore that. It’s about school, and a kid in school, and they are kids in school, so it offers no escape. I understand. However, the main character, Nicholas, is a bit naughty and they like that. And I like that some of them try his exact same tactics with me, immediately after finishing a chapter. If I’m paying attention, which I usually am, it doesn’t work. But that means the kids were paying attention, so that worked. 

Nicholas is a naughty kid — not in the same way as Jeffrey in There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom — but he’s a bit of a stinker about school, and he devises a plan to annoy his language arts teacher. It grows and grows until it becomes a national movement. The kids are both impressed and unimpressed with that, but we forge ahead. In the final chapters, there is a twist and I love reading it aloud dramatically to see the kids’ expressions as they put it all together, and I close the book and look at their faces and we process what it all means in a bit of silence. 

There is something beautiful and intangible about this book. It feels like it’s from another time. It is —  it was written in the 90s. But there is a subtle structure built throughout showing how to disagree with someone and not disrespect them in the process. It shows how to be a worthy adversary. The disagreement — the rivalry, even — between the student and the teacher is filled with intelligence and regard and eventually with love. I don’t know how many of the kids see it, but I do. And it’s moving to see on the page.

The Read Aloud Series is a review of the series of books I used to read aloud to my third grade students every year after lunch. The exact order and titles changed somewhat over the years, but these are the ones that were most beloved, both for the kids as listeners and for me as the read aloud reader. Many afternoons our 15-minute read aloud time would stretch into 20, 30, sometimes as long as 45 minutes, as the kids begged to hear more of a story, or we discussed what a character did, or I reread difficult passages, or diagrammed family trees and plot lines for them. I can say that my gift as a teacher was, and still is, my enthusiasm for a good story, and these are the books that have brought me a great deal of joy in sharing with young readers over the years. 

on the process, week of Jan 22-28

/ Elizabeth / Leave a comment

so, no writing. but other creativity-related things happened. like eating beautiful meals and dancing to music that rattled the whole building, and going for a swim and thinking. as with the laps, my brain turned on the same thoughts over and over. mostly, I love swimming. I’ve got to do this every Sunday. how do I get Annabelle (my novel’s protagonist) to come to me and tell me her story, in her voice, without it feeling strange? as with all things, I think I’ve just got to start. that will be my goal for this week:  a snappy, 500-word vignette told from Annabelle’s perspective. I feel exposed just saying a small goal like that to more than myself, but I hope we’ll all be kind with how it works itself out. 

I’ve also thought about a couple of submission deadlines. of course, the publications I admire and covet being in the most have closed submission windows, but that’s okay. I didn’t have anything for them to read anyway. however, a couple deadlines for smaller publications are coming up that I think I can do something for, little flash pieces. the one on skin is still in the works, and I have an idea brewing for something else. 

oh, and another piece of evidence that I can work under a deadline, that I can write inside little snippets of time:  I wrote a poem today, a found poem — sometimes known as a blackout poem or an altered page poem. I did it as a way to experience what my creative writing students will experience, to see how long it might take, to imagine how hard they’ll have to think. it was hard. but I did it. so they can do it, too. 

remember loves, the stakes are not that high. just try. just begin. see you next week.

my trial run blackout poem

Read Aloud Series, Book 3: Clementine

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Book 3, Clementine

This petite book by Marla Frazee shows that girls can be Bad Kids, too. Clementine is wildly distracted and wildly creative and caring and silly and so youthful and innocent. She is a little bit manic pixie dream girl, but in a mostly harmless and very childlike way. Because Clementine is a child. She makes so many mistakes and is so much herself that through the opening chapters the kids at first are confused by her:  cutting off all her friend’s hair, then her own, then trying to fix it with red permanent marker, eating peas with a toothbrush, naming her pets after cosmetics products. Clementine also deals with loss and longing in a way that gently opens that conversation for the kids. It’s very silly and also disarming and real. 

Clementine creates a way into building curiosity and patience for a character, into experiencing the truth of the narrative before the protagonist does, and then waiting to see when and how she finally catches on. It sheds some light on how to love our friends and family members, even the most maddening ones, with generosity and curiosity. It shows how we can treat a Bad Kid with gentleness and acceptance and humor. Because we all make mistakes, and we have all wished to be embraced for who we are, and not just tolerated.  

The Read Aloud Series is a review of the series of books I used to read aloud to my third grade students every year after lunch. The exact order and titles changed somewhat over the years, but these are the ones that were most beloved, both for the kids as listeners and for me as the read aloud reader. Many afternoons our 15-minute read aloud time would stretch into 20, 30, sometimes as long as 45 minutes, as the kids begged to hear more of a story, or we discussed what a character did, or I reread difficult passages, or diagrammed family trees and plot lines for them. I can say that my gift as a teacher was, and still is, my enthusiasm for a good story, and these are the books that have brought me a great deal of joy in sharing with young readers over the years. 

30-day Yoga Challenge: Four Challenges in One

/ Elizabeth / Leave a comment

Since I’m nearly done with it, I feel safe to share the fact that I’m participating in a 30-day yoga challenge:  30 consecutive days of yoga classes, come hell or high water, from April 2 to May 1. And in some ways this challenge isn’t challenging at all — in other ways it lives up to its name entirely.

Challenge #1:  Deciding — And Sticking With It

For most things in life, the deciding part is hardest. Well, not the deciding part so much as everything else that follows once the deciding has been done. After I decided to do this challenge, a lot of things had to shift in my life to make space for it, the biggest being how I spent my time. My alarm clock has been going off faithfully every morning, no sleeping in on the weekends. Most days I’ve had to either stay late at work or leave most of my work to do list undone so I could fit in a yoga class. I’ve had to rearrange social engagements on the weekends so that I can get to yoga, and sometimes skip or reschedule appointments during the week. This may seem extreme, but it’s what commitment looks like when any one of us makes a decision and then sticks with it. Those things we’ve decided are the big deal things in our lives take precedent — or they should — so they’re setting the tone for the day, the week, the month. Everything else should be secondary.

And I have to say that the “sticking with it” part has been tough when I’ve been faced with a tempting alternative to my decision — most often sleeping in on the weekends or skipping an evening class to go home and laze on the couch. But it’s been a good test of my will, to see that I can be determined and strong enough to push myself out of my habits to I achieve something new.

Challenge #2:  Pacing Myself

Unfortunately — or maybe fortunately? — I tend to be a competitive person, even in a noncompetitive setting like a yoga class. Most days I have some form of Rubber Neck Syndrome, where I’m checking out what everyone else is doing, looking at their form, their flexibility, their strength, and then of course comparing it to mine. Maybe it’s from my many years of dance training or my perfectionist tendencies that I naturally start to compare myself to others, but in this challenge I had to really let go of that. In some ways it was good to know that I wasn’t in the same place as most of the other people in the room — there were only about 12 of us doing the challenge overall and maybe one or two in the room with me most days, so that meant that the pressure was off — or maybe not off — but my mindset definitely adjusted when I went into a class. Like I mentioned in last week’s entry, I was really running my own race — or yoga-ing my own yoga. Because of course I couldn’t force myself into the splits and then flip myself upside down into several reps of a forearm stand and then push through a dozen jump-backs from crow pose to chaturanga (first and foremost, because I can’t do crow pose jump-backs to chaturanga) but also because I had to come back to class tomorrow and the next day and the next.

I had to pace myself for the long haul, take it slower than I usually would, and really focus on my own process, listen to my body and my body alone to make sure that we’d get through the month in one healthy piece. Because if I “won class” for the day but felt miserable and sore — or even injured myself — then I’d be defeating the whole purpose of the challenge, and of yoga itself.

Challenge #3:  Imbalance Exposing Imbalance

I mentioned earlier that once I’d made the decision to participate in the challenge I had to reprioritize the way I spent my time, and now that I’m almost through I can look back and see how much this yoga challenge — in some ways its own imbalance on my time — exposed other imbalances in how I spend my time, particularly at work. Without the yoga challenge to pull me away from work and to put some pressure on how I spend my time in the evening, it was easy for me to excuse long hours at work, sometimes up to 12 hours a day. But this challenge has made me notice that work really demands a lot of me, and a lot of my free time. I’m not complaining that I have a job that requires after-hours time, but I’m concerned by the amount of after-hours time I was spending — and am still spending — usually up to 20 unpaid hours a week. This challenge has made me feel some stress, and even anxiety, around time but mostly because there never seems to be enough time for work and also for myself. It’s something that I’m going to be further exploring even after this challenge ends; balance is such a key value that I hold and I want to embody that more.

Challenge #4:  What Happens Next?

This leads to the final challenge within this challenge. I’m almost done with it, but I’m already thinking about what’s next. Do I want to continue daily yoga classes? Do I want to take a break from yoga? Do I want to continue daily exercise and meditation, but expand into to different forms, like gym workouts and more traditional cardio or pick up my meditation practice from months ago? I’m not quite sure yet, and I have a couple of days to decide, but I do know that this challenge has pushed me to make a decision and to make shifts in my life that push me to be more balanced. I’ve also seen that competition is not as important as compassion — especially self-compassion — and that even when I don’t think I’m making any gains I am. I’ve surprised myself this month by becoming physically stronger even when I didn’t think I was, by becoming more patient with myself, and more able to let go, even if momentarily, of the demands of the outside world on my inner life.

After this challenge ends on Tuesday, I look forward to Wednesday and the days that follow and the decisions I’ll get to make that will quiet the outside world and amplify my inner voice, one that is still keenly competitive, but also more compassionate and striving for balance.

as strong as the weakest link, or run your own race?

/ Elizabeth / Leave a comment

lately, some of the adages I’ve heard since I was very young are really starting to resonate with me — I’m really starting to get them, and it’s most frequently been in the context of the classroom.

You’re Only as Strong as Your Weakest Link

this one used to annoy me a lot as a kid, in pretty much any group situation. in the settings where I was a stronger link, most often at school, I was easily impatient with and frustrated by “weaker links,” kids who didn’t get things as quickly as I did or who didn’t do their homework or try as hard, or whatever it was that in my child brain didn’t measure up.

as an adult, and especially as a teacher, I see now how each kid coming to school may be pushing as hard as they can, but the homes they’re coming from may either create obstacles or lay fertile ground for their school success. and that home life variable can be anything from poverty, not speaking English at home, having only one parent, having parents who are splitting up or who argue and fight often, to parents who are college graduates and earn high incomes and take their children on enriching vacations and hire tutors and nannies and send them to club sports and private lessons. it’s easy to grow when you’re a kid from an optimal home — or on the optimal side — versus kids who live in obstacle-filled homes.

I can see that now, and I can see it better, and I understand why I was impatient as a kid. and I know that I was guilty of thinking that I was smarter than other kids in my room. however, no adult — no teacher or parent or family member — ever broke it down for me, explaining that not every kid has the same home life. not every kid gets their own, quiet room to sleep in at night. not every kid gets a home-cooked meal and a place and time to do their homework. not every kid gets vacations to destinations around the country and around the world. and not every kid has parents who are genuinely interested in their success. so what can I do, now that I’m in a position to be that adult who can break it down for different groups of kids? — but not do it in a way that says, “Hey, you’ve got nothing, you’re our weakest link,” or “Hey, you’re so lucky, congratulations, you’re our strongest link?”

my best attempts have been trying to show it through biography and stories — to discuss how real kids from history, like Louis Braille and Helen Keller, had different childhoods, but through their circumstances were able to achieve a lot. I felt a little weird explaining it to my students at the time, but it was true and I think I had to say it. I said, “you know, if Helen Keller’s family wasn’t a wealthy, landowning family, we would probably have never known who she was. her family wouldn’t have been able to pay for a teacher to come and live with her, to give up her entire life to teacher Helen, and only Helen, for her entire life. it makes a big difference if you’re rich, and Helen was lucky.” I paused and thought, then went on. “and Louis Braille didn’t come from a wealthy family at all, so they had to be strict with him and give him chores and not help him too much even when he made mistakes. they had to see him fall, and then tell him not give up, or let him become spoiled or hopeless. they had to push him hard and he had to push himself hard, too. thankfully he never gave up, and we have braille today, and we have him to thank — and Helen Keller has him to thank, too. so we have to remember that our families help to push us hard and even our teachers are here to push us hard, too.”

So my role as teacher, and as adult in the world I guess, is to notice those people around me who are dealing with obstacles and setbacks, to acknowledge that and not to see them through a lens of strength or weakness, but through the lens of needing my understanding, encouragement, and support.

Run Your Own Race

my internal struggle then comes from the balance I try to find between caring for my students who need the understanding, encouragement, and support and also caring for my students who are already fortunate enough to come to school with a lot of the “optimal home life” boxes checked. between these two groups, what’s fair?

honestly, I don’t know. this is a struggle I’ve had for years. I have only so much time, so many resources, and so much energy, and I have to work with what I’ve got, sometimes moment to moment, and with a lot of variables at play each day. and for me it goes down all the way to the question of what a free and appropriate education is — what that truly means. does that mean that each child is challenged and engaged at their individual level for as much of the day as possible? does that mean that children are asked to learn the content of their grade level (first grade, second grade, third grade, etc.) and anything beyond that is extra? does it mean that kids need to be divided or tracked, so kids with more similar needs can be together? does it mean that kids cycle through different teachers throughout the day, so they can see specialists for each content area?

I know what’s plausible for me as a teacher, and I’ve heard what’s fashionable and preferred by parents, which — spoiler alert — are incompatible. so what do we do? most importantly, I think parents need to adjust their expectations, and think back to when they were kids. think back to what their teachers did for them, what their parents did for them, and then what they were expected to do for themselves. because in the end, we are running our own race, each one of us — and we have been all along — and kids’ teachers and parents and supportive adults are there to coach, model, and cheer them on, but ultimately our kids have to learn responsibility and they have to be driven by their own desire to self-actualize and get to their own finish lines.

living, (in)action

/ Elizabeth / Leave a comment

the coming of spring has got me a little distracted, but i still wanted to attempt a post — so here’s what i’ve got for now.

some thoughts from the week(s):

  1. positive envy — creates a spark in ourselves to emulate those we admire:  getting fit, eating healthy, getting a degree, being kind, being courageous. esteem and admiration are positive forms of envy, ones that we hope to inspire in others so that they push themselves to greater heights.
  2. negative envy — creates a spark to be aggressive, to take people down a peg and keep them “in their place,” to keep them from being too powerful, too rich, too famous. when taken to the extreme we can attribute certain types of violence to negative envy. (from Hidden Brain podcast, Counting Other People’s Blessings)
  3. walk up vs. walk out campaign — yes, we should avoid excluding people and shun bullies, but sometimes the people being excluded or bullied deserve that behavior. i’ve seen unpopular kids become unpopular because they’re unkind, immature, rude, do gross things. there’s also the bystander issue:  if a kid is being unkind, immature, rude, gross and you’re observing this happen, as their peer say something firmly but kindly; explain that that their behavior is unacceptable and help bridge the misunderstanding. but then there’s the question — do we let kids “be themselves” no matter how much that may push them out of the social group, essentially becoming isolated and an outsider, or do we teach kids that in order to be accepted into a social group they can’t always be themselves, do whatever they want? sometimes concessions have to be made to be in a group — and if we’re not willing to make certain concessions about who we are and the ways we want to act and be, then we have to accept that it’s not a good fit, and leave that group to search for another one, no?
  4. walk up vs. walk out — one day of nice notes isn’t going to make an outsider feel like they’re “in.” and if the outsider is truly already pushed outside the social group, they will know that. moreover, redirecting kids to “be nice” instead of taking time to be socially disobedient — in a safe way, i might add — to make a point about their rights to a safe childhood and safe environments is a distraction from the actual issue of violence and access to guns. it’s also talking down to kids:  you want to protest the problem of gun violence in your society? how about you write 17 sticky notes and pass them out to your friends and teachers instead? why don’t you tell a “sad kid” a joke? a lot more work that that has to be done to create environments of care, concern, and tolerance.
  5. progressives and conservatives and neo-cons — it’s all a shit show, isn’t it? we’re all raging against a machine, one that our predecessors created and one that we’re living in, following the rules of the game, willingly or perhaps unwillingly. and groups of people when they come together create a mess. it’s hard to unify because there are so many exceptions to the rule, especially as humans. essentially we are built to be diverse in body and mind. that diversity is both our greatest strength and our greatest obstacle. hopefully we will develop the imagination and compassion to see one another in closer kinship.
  6. Hoodoisie (say:  hood-WAH-zee, from the French bourgeoisie) — a show in Pilsen (Chicago! south side!) my wife and i went to on Saturday night. lots of progressive politics discussed. lots of people present from non-mainstream identities including race, gender, sexual orientation. and as a teacher who went into teaching to invest in our collective human capital, to plant the seeds of self-empowerment, self-revelation, and internal revolution — drops of water that would hopefully one day become a wave of change on a planet that is thirsty for change — i feel uplifted and encouraged that good things are happening and will continue to happening. growth and change is on the way.
  7. children — spent time with some of my favorite four kids this weekend. checkers and rolling dice and dinner and hair cuts and car rides and talking and laughing and chocolate chip cookies. children can be terrible tyrants sometimes, but they are also beautiful healings. what love.
  8. balance — a teacher this weekend said to me, “if we all had perfect balance we wouldn’t be here.” and i take that “here” to mean the room we were in, but also the lives we’re living. balancing peace and struggle, effort and rest, compassion and justice, oneness and individuality, patience and action, control and letting go — that’s what it’s all about. there is mystery and depth and unknowableness in life, and that unites us.