One for Memorial Day

At the Vietnam Memorial

By George Bilgere

The last time I saw Paul Castle

it was printed in gold on the wall

above the showers in the boys’

locker room, next to the school

record for the mile. I don’t recall

his time, but the year was 1968

and I can look across the infield

of memory to see him on the track,

legs flashing, body bending slightly

beyond the pack of runners at his back.

He couldn’t spare a word for me,

two years younger, junior varsity,

and hardly worth the waste of breath.

He owned the hallways, a cool blonde

at his side, and aimed his interests

further down the line than we could guess.

Now, reading the name again,

I see us standing in the showers,

naked kids beneath his larger,

comprehensive force—the ones who trail

obscurely, in the wake of the swift,

like my shadow on this gleaming wall.

by jinguangw. Used with permission under creative commons license.

I’ve never known why I have always been so interested in the Vietnam War and the Vietnam War-era.  It’s probably some combination of the fact that my father and uncle were both in ‘Nam back in the mid-1960s and I am a kid of the 1980s, the decade where it seemed that every other movie being made was about the war.  Or maybe it’s because I’ve always known that this war was different than the others that we’d fought in the 20th Century, especially when it came to the homefront and since I’m the product of a couple of Baby Boomers, I have always had an interest in the history of post-WWII America and the rise of the suburbs to prominence in our society (I also watch Mad Men).

Alas, I don’t teach much literature about the Vietnam War, or about America, because being a sophomore English teacher, my curriculum’s focus is on “world” literature (though I admit to playing fast and loose with that).  I do, however, teach one of the best war novels of all time, All Quiet on the Western Front, and when I do, I not only bring out poetry from the World War I era, but I make sure to share the above piece by George Bilgere, which was introduced to me by a student a couple of years ago who read it for our Poetry Out Loud competition (and killed it, too).  It is a great way for me to link to literature about war that involves my students’ own country and relatively recent history and also drives home the point I repeatedly make about Paul Baumer–he is only a couple of years older than the students in my class who are reading the book.  Plus, there’s the fact that Paul Castle is the big man on campus … THE guy.

“That’s who wound up going to war and dying,” I tell them, trying to toe the line between getting the point across and saying anything that would get me accused of “liberal indoctrination.”  For some of them, this helps get the point across, especially since I teach in a school where the idea of the “big man on campus” is still a concept that’s very alive and well; for others, it’s in one ear out the other, as it is with everything, I guess.

But on a holiday like this, it’s important to remember what’s lost in war and the last stanza of the poem speaks to that “larger, comprehensive force” in a way that is so succinct and yet so complex.

The Return of the Summer Reading Project

Photo by Daniel A. D’Auria. Used under creative commons license.

Last year, when I was writing my old blog, I had this idea to read several books that were within the same genre and post about them as I read them. I think I figured that it would give me a decent amount of blog fodder for the summer, which is generally a period when nothing is really happening in education (unless there’s a law about to be passed) and when there’s a dearth of material.

I chose travel books as my genre, inspired by my pickup of William Least Heat-Moon’s Blue Highways at a Borders a few months prior. So I put that on top of a list I created in my head and got started. I read a few books last summer, but summer turned into fall and I was still reading travel books, or books somehow “travel-esque.” So it became not just a summer reading project, but a reading project.

Last week, I began re-reading my copy of Robert Sullivan’s Cross-Country, which was on my original list, and seeing that summer is once again approaching, I thought I’d go ahead and try to finish this project (by my estimation, I have five things left to read) and do the requisite blogging about the books I’m reading.

I have already finished one book for this project but don’t have an entry ready, and Cross-Country won’t be finished for at least another week or so, so instead of talking about that particular book I thought I would recap what I had already read since my old blog has since been deleted. So, here’s what I’ve read so far (and just to be extra lazy in this post, I’ve copied/pasted from the old blog archives)…

No one is to blame … oh wait, I am

image by John Ragai. Used under creative commons license.

So earlier this week, one of the clubs in my school messed something up.  It wasn’t a horrible mistake or anything and I don’t really want to get into the specifics, but it was one of those types of mistakes that was easily visible and could have been easily prevented.  As is with all mistakes of this type, the “Oh what a shame” conversations began among my fellow faculty members and at one point, I heard someone ask, “Who’s responsible?”

“Well,” I told that person, “the students are responsible but the adviser is going to get blamed.”

Yes, it was a snide remark, as I am a tight ball of stress during the last two weeks of school because the yearbook comes out and I live in constant fear of both not being able to pay the bill to the publisher and the angry parent phone call, but there’s also some truth in it as well.  Whenever something that is supposed to be student-led or student-centered goes wrong, it seems that someone is going to the teacher or adviser and asking them, “How could you let this happen?”  Heck, sometimes it’s even worse and there are people in the principal’s office, at school board meetings, and in the local media calling for the teacher in question to be fired.

I bring this up not to complain that as an activities adviser I am held accountable for the actions of my students (as a professional, I know the meaning of the word “accountability”), but because I have read a number of blog posts and sat in on a number of chats on Twitter lately where the discussion about the role of teachers has been about how our role is evolving and the notion of a “teacher” is probably obsolete.  Some people go as far as to talk about how the notion of school is obsolete.  Stop me if you’ve heard these before:

• You are no longer the sage on the stage.  Be the guide on the side.
• Teachers shouldn’t think of themselves as teachers, but as coaches or mentors
• We are in a post-industrial society and no longer training children to work in factories
• Students should not be grouped by date of manufacture and be forced to learn what they don’t want to
• School should connect to real life and audiences should be authentic

Now, these are all nifty catchphrases and buzzy words, but forgive me if I tend to be a bit of a skeptic when I hear them (especially from the mouth of someone paid more than what I make in one month to come and talk to my faculty for one day), especially any of them that suggest that the job that I am doing is somehow irrelevant (Yes, I get defensive.  You would too if you were told that you’re useless).  But I’m not stubborn enough to think that my role doesn’t have to evolve with the times.  I definitely like the idea of my students producing work for an audience that goes beyond the classroom or the school (though as I’ve said before, I take issue with my being considered not “authentic” enough of an audience), which is why I have enjoyed working on yearbooks and student newspapers.

But I have to wonder, if the student work isn’t very good or if there is something wrong about it that upsets someone, does it have to be just me that’s called on the carpet?

In my seven years as a yearbook adviser, I have had both ends of the spectrum when it comes to staffs–staffs who worked so well together that I truly felt like an adviser, and staffs who did so little of their own work that I can point to every page of that yearbook and tell you what I did to make it look good.  With the latter type of staff, I found myself doing an enormous amount of work because I have an aversion to things with my name on them looking like crap.  Call it egotistical, but it’s the truth.  And I know that if I had put that aside and allowed things to look like crap, I would have been more or less found “responsible” for that crappiness even though I didn’t actually do the work.

There’s a point in here and I’ll get to it because it’s 8:00 on a Saturday morning and I have to get my son ready for a tee ball game.  If we are going to encourage student-centered work that’s meant for an “authentic” audience (seriously), is it still our job to shield them from the negativity that exists when that authentic audience finds it sub-par or even offensive?  Say a student posts a class project to YouTube and a parent in the district gets upset that “this is what is being produced in our classrooms?!?!” and goes to the school board.  Should I put that student on the phone with the angry parent or bring him to the meeting with the principal or put him up in front of the school board or is it still my job to take the bullet?  I’m not against the idea of continuing to take that bullet–after all, I am professional–but I wonder if the rhetoric that I bullet-pointed at the beginning of this post doesn’t set us up for a double standard, especially when our culture (that “real life” “authentic” audience) doesn’t know the ins and outs and nuances of education.

Old Dinosaurs vs. Young Darlings

Ron Darling’s 1987 Topps baseball card.

I took someone’s job, and it looks like someone’s going to take my job. And that hurts, but it’s how the game goes. And if you’re replaced by someone who’s much better than you, then you can live with it. That’s how it goes. But if you’re replaced by someone who you think is marginal, then you know how more marginal you are. And that stings a little more.

You’re an athlete your whole life, so you always trick yourself into believing that you’re one start away, one at-bat away from getting it fixed again. And when you’re in that position, I’m thinking, OK, I’m going to have five to seven more starts down the stretch. If I go on a little five-game winning streak, it changes my year, it changes my attitude. If I’m not going to be with Oakland next year, I’ll be with someone else. I’ll just catch on with someone else next year and figure it out.

I’m probably posting this because I’m a Mets fan and my classroom has all sorts of 1986 Mets memorabilia pasted onto the walls, but I found Ron Darling’s reflection on the end of his career (“How a Career Ends: Ron Darling,” Deadspin 5/21/12) moving.  Darling was one of the starting pitchers on that 1986 team and had a solid performance in the World Series before spending a few more years with the Mets and then winding up on Oakland for the remainder of his career.  The Deadspin piece is about that ending, when he was let go from the A’s on his birthday.

Maybe it’s because I’m 35–the same age Darling was when he was let go–or because I’m hitting the end of another year here and watching people around me make up their minds as to what they’re going to be doing.

Or maybe it’s because I read too much into the political stories of the day and hear a lot of complaining that makes it seem like teachers’ retiring is ruining the country or something.

Or maybe it’s because sometimes I think the deck is stacked against the older among us just as it is with athletes.  I remember starting out and hearing about how there were so many “dinosaurs” in my midst, teachers who hadn’t changed since they began teaching (which was probably when I was a zygote).  But I learned quickly how valuable their methods and advice were despite what the overpaid professional development speakers were saying about them not being “new” or “fresh” or whatever buzzword they were throwing around accompanied by plugs for their books.

Or maybe it’s because when I read about his final acceptance of it all, the moment he decided that it was okay for him to walk away from the game for at least a couple of years (Darling is now a color commentator with the Mets), I thought of when my father retired from teaching a little more than a decade ago.  From what I gathered, he retired so that he was under contract and could get the benefits he’d rightfully earned.  After his retirement from public school teaching, he did some time at a local college and then two years at a private middle school before finally deciding that it was time to leave.  Which is how I think I would want to leave this profession myself — under the auspices of leaving when I want to not because I have to.  Of course, that’s not always the case for everyone.

Lately, I’ve been seeing more and more individual stories from people in all walks of life that I find so fascinating.  I don’t know if this is a teachable thing or not — perhaps a writing prompt about knowing when it’s over or something? — but sometimes in this profession, not everything has to be.

Dead men do tell tales

In this 1992 file photo, Frank Edward Ray stands in Chowchilla, Calif., by the bus from which he and 26 students were kidnapped. Ray, the school bus driver hailed as a hero for helping 26 students escape after three men kidnapped the group and buried the entire bus underground in 1976 has died. He was 91. (AP Photo/Merced Sun Star, File)

I started reading obituaries on a fairly regular basis back when I was in college.  One of my professors had the class subscribing to the New York Times on a daily basis (this was in the days before the NYT had a digital presence) and another one of my professors shared what he thought were captivating obituaries with my senior writing seminar class on a regular basis.  I believe it was under the auspices of “Somebody interesting dies every day.”

Every Sunday, I get the Washington Post delivered to my house.  It’s a hold-over from an earlier time for me, in a way–plus, I clip coupons–because when I get the chance, I do like sitting down with a cup of coffee and a newspaper (and there’s something satisfying about washing newsprint off your hands.  Call me old-fashioned, a luddite, or non-innovative, but that’s just me).  Anyway, Sundays are when I leaf through the Metro section and read the obituaries.  Usually most of the pieces (the obits themselves, not the death notices, btw) are mildly interesting and barely keep my attention beyond the first couple of paragraphs.  But today had a great one, that of Ed Ray, a bus driver who once saved a group of students after they’d been kidnapped and buried (“Calif. bus driver who helped 26 students escape kidnappers in 1976 dies at age 91″):

“I remember him making me feel safe,” said Jodi Medrano, who was 10 when three men hijacked the school bus and stashed the group in a hot, stuffy storage van in a rock quarry.

Medrano held a flashlight as the bus driver worked with older students to stack mattresses, force an opening and remove the dirt covering the van so they could escape after 16 hours underground. She never left Ray’s side during the ordeal.

The entire story itself–recapped in the article–is so incredible you’d swear it was fiction.  And it reminded me that obituaries can make for great reading in English class.  It’s been a while since I did anything with obits–not since I was teaching journalism, to be honest–but seeing what a fascinating story exists in Ed Ray, I wonder if this could be a gateway to a really cool research project or something on how “ordinary” or “everyday” people are as extraordinary and important to our society as celebrities and other figures.

It’s food for thought at this point as I gather up what’s left of my year and think about what I’d like to do in class next year.  But I highly recommend reading the obituaries every once in a while, especially since you don’t know what you’re going to find out.

A completely worthless, non-expert-recommended summer reading 2012 list

Today, I handed out the summer reading assignments for my sophomores who will be moving up to advanced or AP English, and as it usually goes they accepted them with a mix of enthusaism for next year and the malaise of burnout from the end of this year.  I did my best to talk up the books that I had read and enjoyed (one of which, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is one of only two war novels I actually like), and told them that both of their potential teachers for next year are amazing (which isn’t a lie — the students at my school are blessed with an amazing English department).  Of course, there was the one voice I get every time I do this, which was: “Uh, do we have to read these?”

“Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah,” is my usual reply, then a reminder that they can change if they don’t want to take the advanced courses.

When I was in school, I bristled at the idea of being asked to read for school during the summer (not reading during the summer, mind you, because I read plenty during the course of a summer).  It’s not that I didn’t like reading, it’s just that I was … well, lazy and didn’t want to do work.  Doing schoolwork each summer would severely cut into my time of sitting on the couch and watching The Price is Right followed by 21 Jump Street reruns where the Craftmatic Adjustable Bed and Contour Chair commercials ran three times and hour.  And you know I wasn’t having that.

Funny enough, once I actually sat down to read the summer reading, I found myself really enjoying it.  I still remember spending the summer before high school with Flowers for Algernon and taking about two days to read it because I couldn’t put it down.  And then there was the summer before AP Government, where I read Walt Bodganich’s The Great White Lie, which was an expose about how mismanaged and screwed up the United States’ healthcare system is (and based on what went down a couple of years ago, I’m not really surprised it hasn’t changed).   Flowers for Algernon is still an old standby of English departments everywhere; Bogdanich’s book is now out of print (but can probably be tracked down in a used bookstore if you’re interested).   They are definitely reminders of summers well spent.

My rising advanced sophomores have two works that we, as a team of 10th advanced teachers, chose:  Albert Camus’ The Stranger and Yann Martel’s Life of Pi.  Both satisfy the state’s “10th grade is world literature” mandate and both satisfy the overall theme I have for the advanced sophomore course, which is “identity”:  what it is, how it changes, the similarities and differences we have the world over, etc.  Plus, both are rich enough to make for a solid paper, which I assign in the first week of school (it really seemed to set the tone well this year).  But in reading a list on a website about good summer reading books, I had to wonder what I would recommend for a summer reading list.  So here are ten listed in no particular order (and categorized to a certain extent) …

Teachers’ Message to Parents, courtesy of The Jimmy Kimmel Show

Jimmy Kimmel put a nice little capper on Teacher Appreciation Week for me.  Enjoy.

[No, seriously, it's okay to laugh ...]

5 Days, 5 Things #5: We Feel Appreciated … but Not When You Think

If you want to be a good edublogger, you put as many apples and chalkboards in your posts as you can. Here is an apple and a chalkboard.

So, it’s Teacher Appreciation Week and in lieu of both inspirational pap and unrelenting snark, I thought I’d share some “observations” or “truths” (or whatever you’d like to call them) about teachers.

I have never liked Teacher Appreciation Week.  I’ve always thought that it was patronizing and made me feel like I really am not a professional but some sort of plebe or servant that is not fit to even be in the same room with people who work “Real Jobs” and have “Real Salaries.”  Whenever the first week of May rolls around, I make my usual cynical remark about “Teacher Depreciation Week,” take my free donut, and go back to work.  Then maybe post something snarky on my blog.

I’ll refrain from the snark this year, however, for two reasons.  First, I can’t think of anything original, and second, this has been a heck of  a week already.  I know that I shouldn’t be that deeply affected by a simple Board of Supervisors meeting about a school budget, but I left that auditorium on Tuesday night feeling exhausted because it was 10:30 at night (lo, I didn’t stay until the very end) and energized to come in the next day (even though I was giving a test in most of my classes).  In discussing that meeting and its outcome and how I felt, I thought a little about the concept of teacher appreciation and those times when I truly have felt appreciated.

Most of those times, it’s something that is completely random or what you would expect.  For instance, one of the coolest things to me has been the fact that I have stayed in touch with a few former students over these past years and have had a chance to see how they are doing through Facebook status updates.  Some have even asked for the occasional piece of advice or recommendation, which I find really flattering.

Of course, those are former students.  I have moments where I feel very appreciated by current students because they put in a serious effort in class or seemed to enjoy something we’re doing; or because we’ll have random chats in the hallway that have nothing to do with school.  There are a few “regulars” around my door in the mornings and before lunch periods (my room is right near the cafeteria) who stop to shake my hand or chat me up before heading off to wherever they’re going (and hopefully aren’t tardy).  There are others who stick around and chat after class ends about everything from what we’ve been doing in class to movies to music to random things that happened.  And I’m not necessarily looking to have 100 “friends” over the course of a day; it just happens that we get along and they’re very nice to talk to.

Moments like that can make a bad day a little more worth it.  Moments like the other night can remind you why you love those little moments every day.  I mean, I know I keep harping on this, but I saw 800 or 900 people stand up late into the night to defend their local public education system.  They stood up and talked about how they love their schools–you know, those places that are “testing factories”?  Those places where children are forced to do things that they don’t want to do?  Those places that are stuck in a model of instruction more suited for a 19th Century industrial society rather than a forward-thinking 21st Century society?  They stood up and said that they wanted to keep those places up and running because they saw that those places are what gave them or their children and opportunity to be successful adults.  They stood up and said that they were grateful for a group of  people who are often decried as “lazy” and “money sucking” and “entitled.”  And I know that the educational system–local, state, and national–is flawed, but many of us are doing what we can to change it in both the short and long term (sorry, I refuse to use the word “fix” because I don’t think public education is “broken”) and when you get to witness something like that, it reminds you why your effort is worth it.

One last thing before I close out these entries.  On Wednesday morning, I ran into one of the students who spoke at the meeting.  He’d been in my class last year and was an outstanding guy.  I shook his hand and we talked about how everything had happened.  Both of us seemed very proud of the previous night and even invigorated.  Simultaneously, one of my current students walked in to my class with a hangdog look on his face and I knew exactly why, so I asked him how the Flyers did the night before.  Good old-fashioned sports trash talk.

I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t need any formal thank-you note from a student or parent.  Just knowing that we support one another and have a bit of a rapport is enough.

5 Days, 5 Things #4: We are Insecure

A lot of edublogs like to post stock photos that somehow illustrate their posts. This is a stock photo of someone looking worried.

So, it’s Teacher Appreciation Week and in lieu of both inspirational pap and unrelenting snark, I thought I’d share some “observations” or “truths” (or whatever you’d like to call them) about teachers.

You ever work with someone or read someone’s blog or attend their professional development lecture session and they seem to talk a lot about how long they have been in education?  Perhaps they even mention how many degrees they have or the hundreds upon thousands of people who think the way they do?  You know where that all comes from, right?  It’s the same place that my desire to continually read about education, keep tweeting about it, constantly revise my lesson plans, and look at whether or not I’m teaching the right way comes from.

A total lack of confidence and complete inescurity.

Oh what, you thought I was going to talk about professionalism and confidence in our abilities?  Sorry, buddy, but in my scant years in this business (I’m almost done with my seventh), I have discovered that teachers are some of the most insecure, neurotic people around.  We fret over every aspect of the job, sometimes to such a degree that I am surprised that there haven’t been more heart attacks and strokes on the job.  But what would you expect when you work in a profession that has, at times, been compared to Nazis and accused of child abuse and considered robber barons and social parasite and brainwashing the children and … well, you get the picture.

Okay, kidding (somewhat) aside, there is a particular neurosis that seems to exist only among teachers.  I think it’s spawned from our commitment to our craft and the need to constantly study up.  Sitting in professional development workshop #324 and hearing someone talk about how everything teachers used to do as teachers was completely wrong doesn’t help, either (seriously … how many of these guys seem to assume that you suck just so they can sell you whatever new idea they have?).  I personally seem to live in fear that I’m not innovative enough or that I don’t use 21st Century methods and skills enough or that because I sometimes like to simply do my own thing I am not collaborative enough.

Come on, you can’t tell me that you have never stood in the middle of a class and a voice in your head hasn’t been saying, “What is this crap?  Why are you up in front of them?  You’re not a sage!  They’re the sages!  They are the drivers of instruction, not you!  You aren’t innovating!  You aren’t doing enough!  You are just there because you have the summers off!  Nothing you do is ever going to stay with them!  You are the person those professional development speakers talk about!  YOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUU SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!”

And they wonder why I am completely fried by May.

And honestly, for all the craziness involved with the voices in my head, I am sure that there is something about this insecurity that drives me as a teacher.  I do want to make sure that my students are engaged and successful and that I don’t feel that I’m standing up in front of my class just to hear myself talk.  Or that they’re standing up in front of the classroom just for me to hear them talk.  It’s why I am writing here, after all.  Plus, I don’t think that you can ever feel truly comfortable in your role because if you do, you risk complacency and I don’t know about you but I definitely am not paid well enough to be complacent.

5 Days, 5 Things #3: We are Professionals

This is a picture of clip art that shows a teacher at a desk. Lots of important edblogs use pictures of clip art showing a teacher at a desk. Since I want to be a successful edblogger, here is a picture of clip art that shows a teacher at a desk.

So, it’s Teacher Appreciation Week and in lieu of both inspirational pap and unrelenting snark, I thought I’d share some “observations” or “truths” (or whatever you’d like to call them) about teachers.

Before the whole budget crisis I wrote about in my last entry finally came to a close, a few people at work brought up the words “chalk flu.” I kept my mouth shut during those conversations because I knew that if such a tactic was called for Wednesday, I wouldn’t participate for two reasons: first, I am actually taking a four-day weekend so I need to be here to get work done; and second, I’m a professional.

That sounds flip, I know, but there is something to be said about taking the high road in times when you and those in your profession are being attacked both monetarily and rhetorically. I figured that if I were to go out sick on a day after a budget meeting that couple possibly cut my school district off at the knees, I would have demonstrated that I am not really worth the amount of praise that was heaped upon me and my fellow educators last night.

The word “professional” seems to be disappearing from our conversation about teachers in a few regards. The media–who always loves a sensational story–never shies away at any story where a teacher is shown yelling at a student or mistreating a student or engaging in criminal activity. I am sure that there are people out there who think that unprofessional and even criminal behavior is now the norm among public educators just because it shows up on the local news. I sure know that there are people who think that we’re in charge of liberal indoctrination because that’s what Fox News reports.

BUt most of us simply show up, do our jobs and do them well, even if there are some aspects of the job that we don’t like (*cough*standardizedtesting*cough*), because that’s what every hard-working professional does. We care about giving every student we have a good shot at learning and achieving and we do that to the best of our ability.

Why? Well, we want to and because of that we’ve gone ahead and made sure that we are knowledgable enough to undertake that task. We’re professional because we take the time to educate ourselves about our field, our craft, and our subjects. I have heard time and again that teachers “do not have a monopoly on knoweldge,” and I don’t think we ever claimed to. However, we make sure that we are fountains of knowledge because people have been put in our charge to learn both with us and from us.

You can talk about unschooling and flipping classrooms and making students the center of learning and whatever is trending this week, but at the core of the discussion is the teacher and what he or she is doing to stay on top of what’s going on and “in the game” so to speak. Because it’s part of what we do and who we are.