Sinner condemned in Tartarus to an eternity of rolling a boulder uphill then watching it roll back down again. Sisyphus was founder and king of Corinth, or Ephyra as it was called in those days. He was notorious as the most cunning knave on earth. His greatest triumph came at the end of his life, when the god Hades came to claim him personally for the kingdom of the dead. Hades had brought along a pair of handcuffs, a comparative novelty, and Sisyphus expressed such an interest that Hades was persuaded to demonstrate their use – on himself.
And so it came about that the high lord of the Underworld was kept locked up in a closet at Sisyphus’s house for many a day, a circumstance which put the great chain of being seriously out of whack. Nobody could die. A soldier might be chopped to bits in battle and still show up at camp for dinner. Finally Hades was released and Sisyphus was ordered summarily to report to the Underworld for his eternal assignment. But the wily one had another trick up his sleeve.
He simply told his wife not to bury him and then complained to Persephone, Queen of the Dead, that he had not been accorded the proper funeral honors. What’s more, as an unburied corpse he had no business on the far side of the river Styx at all – his wife hadn’t placed a coin under his tongue to secure passage with Charon the ferryman. Surely her highness could see that Sisyphus must be given leave to journey back topside and put things right.
Kindly Persephone assented, and Sisyphus made his way back to the sunshine, where he promptly forgot all about funerals and such drab affairs and lived on in dissipation for another good stretch of time. But even this paramount trickster could only postpone the inevitable. Eventually he was hauled down to Hades, where his indiscretions caught up with him. For a crime against the gods – the specifics of which are variously reported – he was condemned to an eternity at hard labor. And frustrating labor at that. For his assignment was to roll a great boulder to the top of a hill. Only every time Sisyphus, by the greatest of exertion and toil, attained the summit, the darn thing rolled back down again.
My current burning question is, “Why do some kids get their assignments done, and others don’t. Simply–don’t.”
If the reasons why were the Seven Dwarfs, these might be their names:
Boredom: I think it’s boring.
Entertain-Me: I think Mrs. L is boring.
Ennui: I don’t see any value in the assignment.
Smarty-Pants:I already know this, and everything else. I have all the knowledge I will ever need, and I am 14! Whoo-hoo!
Apathy: I don’t care to demonstrate any level of skill or creativity.
Resignation: I don’t understand this, so I won’t try.
Humdrum: It’s the same old routine anyway, so I might as well sit here.
I don’t use the “L” word, lazy. I don’t think most people are lazy. To me, laziness disappears when something is motivating or entertaining. Remember the 53 hours a week spent on media? Apparently, tweens/teenagers will work more than a full-time job on watching TV, texting, listening to music, playing on line games, video games, talking on cell phones, etc. Lazy? Hardly! They’re working their little thumbs down to the nub!
BUT – most of that media is one-way. It puts things in your brain, and you don’t have any content control. You are willingly, actively, giving up your own brain to electronic devices. Did you want to be a robot when you grew up? Well, okay then.
Here is my grading philosophy, which I share with every student at the beginning of the school year, and reinforce all year long:
All I ask is that you do the work to the best of your ability. Show me what you know, or have learned. If I ask you to write about the process, how you came to that knowledge, it’s to help me help you so you won’t continue with misinformation or misconceptions.
You give yourself your grade. You do the work, you get credit. Something is only truly graded on a scale when you have worked to revise, reflect, and polished – did you make your writing better? Did you make sure you hit the mark on certain assignments, meaning-did you look over the rubric and decide and evaluate your own work? I make this scale transparent and fair. For example, if I ask you to write a paragraph and add at least one line of figurative language (that we spent a week reviewing), then that is the scale by which it’s evaluated. Didn’t put in a single line of figurative language? Well, then you didn’t do the assignment as assessed.
Question: Is it that rewiring your thinking about your education is difficult, that you have been programmed to respond a certain way over the past nine years and now you can’t think for yourself?
Answer: I don’t know.
I look at assignments that have been turned in.
I see amazing work, from every level of academic ability. (And that’s a whole other issue!) I see work that students attempt, even if it misses some of the marks, that’s okay. That’s where the growth happens. I know that if a student consistently turns in work that meets every requirement, every point, I am not challenging them. I need to step it up for them.
I am really struggling right now with students who are arrogant. Who, at least outwardly, portray this image of apathy, boredom, and waste their intelligence and creativity by doing nothing. I try to remember that my students come to me with a long history of behaviors, but my own ego thinks my creative, interesting teaching will be the key to unlocking their genius. Wow–what kind of hubris is that? I’d better check my own reflection, I guess.
So–now what?
For those of you who turn in your work, who email me questions, ask questions in class, and stretch your thinking: Congratulations! You have decided to make your life more interesting, more creative, more imaginative than the next human. Your life is already more bright, more enriched by your own power, your own control.
And if you think I’m boring as a teacher, well, not much I can do about that. Call me Resigned. I love to develop lessons and units that I would like to do, that I wish I could have done in school, or I listen to other teachers’ ideas about interesting lessons, too. (It’s not just my perspective – I try to think about what you would like to do.) Before you start blaming others for your own actions, though, you may want to check in with your own head. You only see me about 235 minutes/week. You’re in your own life 10,080 minutes/week. My class is only .02% of your week.
No big secret: my school district had a strike this past fall. Because of these events, and the law requiring 180 days of school, we shifted our schedule around, cutting three days off of our traditional mid-winter break and three days off of spring break. I tried to prepare myself: I really love mid-winter break for many reasons, and was planning on using this year’s spring break to do something different and exciting. Mid-winter break is wonderful: it doesn’t have the anxiety and financial pressures of the winter holiday, which in my household involves not only Christmas festivities, but two Capricorn birthdays, and New Year’s.
This year mid-winter break was going to be devoted to finishing up my National Board’s work, and then next year, who knows? Maybe I would go on a trip with my husband, celebrating my birthday, too? All kinds of possibilities awaited.
I know my students need the break, too. Short breaks are restful and mentally productive. Studies have shown that the extended summer breaks diminish educational gains; in other words, we lose some ‘smarts’ over the summer. It is a common misconception, too, that teachers have the summers off. What we have is an unpaid break, watching from the sidelines as our students’ gains vanish like firefly sparks in the summer air.
But teaching is hard work, and deserves hard and fast breaks. Now, for those of you who still scoff at whiny teachers, consider: 800 hours/year is spent in the corporate world checking your e-mails. How many of you have played a game of Solitaire, or checked your text messages during a meeting? If you’re not being productive, it’s okay. I’m not accusing you of anything. But just understand that teaching, good teaching, is a performance, literally a performance, based job. I personally have six “shows” to perform each day, with a four minute break in between, for 47 minutes each show. I plan my performances to the minute, and then reflect on why the ‘audience’ wasn’t responsive, or if I got heckled, or where to polish my material.
I’m back on stage tomorrow.
Right before this break, one of my students pointed a finger at me, gnashing his teeth, and angrily asking, “Was it worth it? The strike?! Oh, man, now we only got a few days!” And no matter how I felt about the strike, or the bigger issues at stake, I was honest with him and said, “For many, yes, things were bad,” and he sympathetically responded, “Oh, I didn’t know, well, then okay.” What that tells me, again, our students support us, and look out for us, just as we do for them.
And if that relationship and trust is ever broken, then it’s all over.
Although I don’t share the collective will and opinion of about 50% of my colleagues who voted on next year’s schedule to abolish mid-winter break again (I think spring break may have been a better choice, since it’s right before THE BIG TEST), I will not shirk my responsibilities and plan for less, or give less, than I always do. I may mentally go to Maui in my mind a bit more, but I’ll come back.
In my slap-dash attempt to cover all emotional and friendship bases the other day, my “chocolate healing” post fell woefully short of its mark. I was trying to say a lot in a small space, and the excess goo didn’t patch or mend, it just stunk the place up. I was trying to say I am sorry. I should have just said that, and shut my pie-hole.
Inspired by Look At My Happy Rainbow’s post, his heartfelt love letter to a colleague, I am inspired to attempt the same. I fear I will fall woefully short again. He is a kindergarten teacher after all. There is intrinsic love and admiration for all kindergarten teachers, male or female, young or old, new or experienced. Kindergarten teachers are the first adults that take on a stature, significance, and set the tone for future school experiences, positive or negative. Usually, it’s positive. In some ways, I have been envious of that hero worship that comes with the territory of being a primary teacher. I teach big kids, on the brink of adulthood. Many have had to be their own parents for a long time, and resist my attempts to help guide them along. No matter. I do what I can, and do what I must.
It is a hard job. No question. And if I ever made this job more difficult for a colleague than it needed to be, then I am doubly ashamed. So I am going to take this moment again –ignoring laundry, grocery lists, and errands and write you all a love letter. I do love you. I love my friends who have been through the trenches of our master’s program. I love my teammates who are truly teammates, although it isn’t a “sport,” (I didn’t play sports growing up), I would challenge anyone who thinks that I and my two core teammates aren’t working in concert, or working as a well-tuned machine that would stand up to any sports analogy one might make. Bring it.
And the ripple-effect of support doesn’t stop with my teammates and cohort friends. It extends to the teachers in the hallway who have my back in case I need to talk to a student in my room during passing time and I can’t stand “on guard duty” in the hallway. It’s for those teachers who understand that I’m not intentionally trying to undermine or not support them if I let a kid eat a Starburst in my room. It’s for the secretaries and support staff who understand my sense of humor, because we all know that’s our survival. It’s for the mentors at every level of administration who don’t feel like ‘ADMINISTRATORS’ but true mentors and friends, who want me to succeed because they know in their hearts how much I care about OUR students, and will go the extra mile for them. They stand by me during the marathon of the year, giving me cups of water and cheers.
So, I do love you. I am humbled by you. You make me bigger than I am by myself.
Yesterday was kind of a weird day. I normally don’t dislike Mondays, but yesterday, I did- I was feeling all Garfieldish and cranky (I am not a fan of Garfield, so even to allude to him demonstrates how Monday it felt.) I was still feeling work-lag from the weekend. Orchestrating every minute to get the most done possible on my current BIG project, the BIG expensive project, the BIG project that has only a 50% chance of succeeding according to “project” statistics, nothing I did played in concert. There was no synchronicity. It was all out of tune.
So, I faced Monday feeling like a failure. Adding to the weight of my current burden, others presented their burdens to me as well. A good friend advised me not to pick those up as well. Let them carry their own bags for awhile; I’ve got enough of my own gear to lug around, and I don’t have a place for it all. And I don’t know where the tuning fork went, but I believe it’s causing me some pain.
The BIG show is coming up–there is an end date. Everyone bought their tickets and the venue is sold out. And the reviews won’t come in for eight months. I’m practicing, creating, and writing to a group of faceless, nameless critics who are sitting in a darkened theatre, holding their applause. And my drummer just imploded, a-la Spinal Tap.
But, you know what they say: The Show Must Go On.
I just wish it felt more like a rock show than a funeral march.
As many of you know, I did not take a straight path to becoming a teacher. I did not set up my stuffed animals and Barbie dolls as if they were in a pretend classroom, teaching them lessons and sending them to Principal Teddy Bear’s office. I did not graduate from high school and go straight to a teacher’s college, such as Columbia, Ohio State, or Joe’s Teach-N-Fix School. So, I wasn’t in a frame of mind to prepare myself for the brave, new world that was coming my way. During my time in high school, the language classes I took were French. Ah, je regrette!
Que devais-je penser?
In our district, there are over 100 languages spoken. Many students come from the gamut of countries where there are few or no opportunities for small economic growth to countries ravaged by war. The majority of students speak both Spanish and English. If I had been thinking in high school, I would have taken Spanish. Spanish is the second most common language spoken in the United States. We would probably notice Canadians, but the majority of them speak English, too. Sans manquer de respect, les Canadiens français.
Needless to say, I never had the opportunity to practice speaking French. I have never been to Paris, France, or even Paris, Texas, for that matter. When Spanish-speaking students whose English skills are on the edge of greatness, but they are still straddling the bi-lingual abyss, I have often wished I had taken Spanish instead to nudge and support them.
But now we have a student who speaks French, from the Congo. C’est fantastique! And my team teacher brought her in yesterday morning to ask me to tell her that school doesn’t start until 8:25.
Uh oh. To say my French was a bit rusty is a understatement. I gestured and said ecole, and huit heure vingt cinq, but I am not sure she understood. I said, Mon nom est Madame Love, and sent her on her way.
And immediately went to Google Translator for other phrases, such as:
I want to practice speaking French: Je veux pratiquer parler français.
and
The building doesn’t open until 8:25:Le bâtiment n’a pas ouvert jusqu’à 8h25.
I can only imagine what this confused, scared, and overwhelmed young lady must think of me, the school, and the U.S. But I want to help. I don’t know if Google translator can handle all of the questions she has, or can help me guide her to all the answers. I don’t even have them myself. But we’ll try. Nous allons essayer de comprendre les uns les autres.
Sometimes the toughest part of my job is deciding what to teach next. It’s a matter of balancing what you need, what you will think is interesting (so you’ll stay motivated), and having personal enjoyment out of my day, too. I know that’s selfish of me, but trust me, if I’m happy, we’re all happy.
Many of you asked what our next unit was going to be. Let me tell you that question both enchanted and terrified me. How awesome it is that you want to know! How horrible it might be if I don’t come up with something really amazing, entertaining, and captivating! (Cue Mrs. L screaming and laughing hysterically at the same time…)
Mrs. L can be a crazy lady sometimes.
So, I am still struggling with “less is more.” (That is a paradox. We will be reviewing figurative language and its importance next week, and adding some new figurative language terms to your knowledge bag.)
Less is more means if we focus closely on one thing at a time, we get more out of it in the long run. So, in theory, spending a few weeks on the Journey of the Hero helps us go deeper with our understanding, and we can take that learning with us for the rest of our lives.
Let me just say a few things about that unit: there were huge successes, and one big failure. The failure, an “epic fail,” if you will, was that many of you did not even read one book for the unit. Your spotty attendance, lack of interest, or struggling with reading, all got in your, and my, way. Remember, the first and most important rule in my class is to never read something because I tell you to. You must identify your purpose for reading, think about the big questions, and read. It’s just that simple. Your purpose for reading during this past Journey of the Hero/Transformation of the Hero unit was to witness a character going through changes, making choices, and changing from the beginning of the story to the end.
You may need to make some brave changes yourself.
The huge successes were that many of you totally, absolutely, got it, and proved it in your essays. (Which I will finish grading once I’m done blogging — a girl’s got to have her priorities, you know.)
Your writing was spectacular. I know I pushed: I left some of the thinking/questions open-ended, more vague, but you really stepped up and demonstrated that you can think for yourself, you can feel uncomfortable and still take a risk. I couldn’t ask for anything more.
The student behaviors that you should value are asking questions, demanding to know why, and not accepting anything less than my best effort, or yours.
So, for this next unit, and units from now on, you will be given more time to read in class. I don’t know why I keep having to learn that lesson repeatedly, but I do. Now, many of you not only read one book, you read several. But for me, it’s not the quantity that matters but the understanding you take away. (Although the more you read, the more you learn, and the more you learn, the better you learn how to learn…huh?)
Insert Knowledge Here.
Here’s a preview of what’s next:
*Figurative Language: understanding the powerful uses of figurative language in your reading and writing is one of the best tools you can master. Figurative language is the language of poets, thinkers, artists, and communicators of all stripes and polka-dots: it includes metaphors, similes, euphemisms, paradoxes, alliterations, personification, idioms, cliches, analogies, allegories, oxymoron and my all-time comic book favorite, onomatopoeia:
*Context Clues: Context clues are specifically about understanding and widening your vocabulary. Here’s the idea: You know words. But you need to know more. If you know more, your ability to read faster and understand more of what you read increases:
Now, you may be asking yourself, “why is reading so important, anyway?”
That’s a good question.
Why don’t you list that as one of your:
*BURNING QUESTIONS! Yes, I have devoted about two weeks to developing your independent reading lives, possibly three weeks. We’ll see how it goes. Once you know how to develop your own reading lists and do the projects independently, you will be released to read on your own.
You may have too many resources to choose from, and our goals will be to narrow down the lists, be focused, read, read, read, and talk/write about what we’re reading.
Oh, and add “listen” to the list, too. You will be listening, looking, and using your other senses to take in information about the world around you; this is all about you: making sense of your world, for your life.
*Mythology, legends, fables, folklore, and fairy tales: We’re going to get started on that, too. When? Not sure. It bugs me to start new units in the middle of a semester, but you know what? We are not bound by the arbitrary rules of time and space! We can decide our own pace, our own course, and have freedom of choice! Hooray!
Here’s what you need to start packing: Finish your Burning Questions Resource Log sheet. Start scoping out different blogs, websites, podcasts, and book sites for a list of what you might want to read. Think about what you’re curious about, things you just want to know, and let those questions be our guide.
See you soon!
For a list of classic literature to help you gain greater vocabulary and background knowledge, check out this list:
I am still trying to find forgiveness for something I did when I was about seven or eight years old. When I was on the playground, one cold, crisp Texan school yard afternoon, the bell rang, and we went to line up. One of my classmates, a sweet, shy boy, while running to line up, was tripped by me. I impulsively stuck out my leg, and down he went. The look on his face when he was getting up was so sad – the meanness was so unexpected, so abrupt, that I knew, I knewI had done something near unforgivable. I will never forget the look on his face. (I know I helped him up, said sorry, but the damage was done.) I am the one who provided that kid with the experience of people are jerks, and sometimes do cruel things for no reason. Yea, me.
Since I can’t find the little boy (who’s obviously not little anymore) that I tripped in first grade, since the vast detective work of Google, Bing, or others will not find this one soul out of billions, and, I don’t remember names, exact dates or locations, I may never be able to find him and say, “I am sorry. I acted rashly, impulsively, but it may have hurt your feelings, and you still may remember it, and it hurt you for a long time.”
Sharing this anecdote with students, one girl commented (several times), “that’s mean, Mrs. L,” until I finally had to say, “Yes, I know…it was mean, and I regret it, feel guilty and remorseful every time I think of it. Now let’s move on.” I would like to think that one act of impulsive, yet intentional bullying was out of character for me. That perhaps I was just ‘trying it on,’ and answering an inner curiosity about what is it like to do something wrong…totally, and absolutely outright wrong. But that sounds like a lot of mental justification.
Trolling for interesting podcasts the other day, I came upon a This American Lifeepisode called “Mind Games” that made me think about how people treat each other, and how if it’s based on lies, it usually doesn’t work out. At all.
This led me to listen to another episode from May, 2002, titled ‘Devil on My Shoulder.’ The premise or theme is that we humans are in constant struggle to choose right versus wrong, moral versus immoral behaviors, and we have so many outside influences pushing us, tempting us, this way and that, that sometimes we are compelled to blame it on a ‘devil on our shoulder,’ feeding us tiny lies and whispering small, but powerfully motivating ways to act unkindly. While my personal philosophy doesn’t include a personification of immoral judgements sitting on my left shoulder, I do believe in a dash of free will along with decision making, cognitive abilities thrown in with a cup of destiny, frosted with fate. Meaning, whether or not you believe in devils and angels, deities and do-gooders, we humans are still faced with the burning question, “what does it mean to do the right thing, and why do we sometimes NOT?”
When I think about what I did, my heart hurts. That’s guilt. I might be a bit mired (stuck) in this one event, true. I am not sure why I’ve had difficulty finding atonement. If one of my children did something like this, I would tell them to learn from it, not to behave in a mean way again, and move on. So, I guess in that way, perhaps if I took my own advice, I can say I did learn from it. I never tripped anyone else again, and certainly never intentionally hurt anyone again. I just hope that somewhere out there, that boy knows I am sorry.
“Safety and happiness can only come from individuals, classes, and nations being honest and fair and kind to each other.”-CS Lewis
I’m sitting here wondering if I should be more concerned over the fact that I’m really not that angry with you for being rude on Friday when we had a guest teacher; does this mean I don’t care anymore? Or does it mean I’ve reached a place of inner peace, better able to confront the misbehaviors directly and calmly?
Many patterns in teaching and learning emerge over time. The pattern of knowing what you don’t know is one of those long-term, polishing-a-rock patterns. Every time you, my students, take a test, write a paper, talk about a book you’ve read, or create reasons why you didn’t, you give me answers. You answer questions such as, “does she understand how to generalize?” “Does he know what this word means?” “How can I help them understand an abstract concept such as making an inference?” And the time-honored, “?” written on a test or quiz. Even knowing when you don’t know something is helpful to me, so I can help you.
I just finished reviewing your latest reading assessment. Here’s what I know now: Most of you know more than you think you do, but you’re still struggling on how to express it. Also, many of you need help working on big ideas, such as “what does it mean to generalize information?” or “is this a reasonable conclusion?” I guess many adults are not asked to perform such higher level thinking as we demand of eighth grade kids. You are little diamonds in the rough, my gems, and let’s bring out your best! It’ll take some time, but teaching is truly a patient, faithful process…I need to believe that if you don’t get it now, someday you will. Otherwise both of us will be ground down for not much but some fool’s gold. Your knowledge and education is your mental gold, and you want the most ka-ching!! as possible. It’s worth it to put forth your best effort, and have faith in yourself, too, and patience.
