Parenting: A War of Attrition

This claim implies children are the enemy, and that sounds so, well, mean...and also true.  In my case, the war is being fought with boots on the ground firmly in the kids' favor.  Kid Army-5.  Parent Army-2.   Granted, I conceived, gave birth to and have chosen to continue feeding and housing said boots, but instead of writing me off as a crazy person who deserves her war, imagine my position.  I am fighting a war with an enemy I arm and fund.  I pass the appropriations bills in Congress.  I send them MREs, and I build assault rifles and fighter jets for them.  It's absurd, so let's not quibble over blame here.  I am in a uniquely disadvantageous position, militarily speaking. 

One of the places that steady, relentless parenting pays off is in church.  Sweet, grey-haired  women approach after Mass to congratulate me on how well behaved my children are.  The war of attrition means learning to modify their behavior without the laying on of hands.  I live in California, so I can't spank in public because I might be turned in to the authorities.  (An attempt to pass a law making spanking in California illegal back in 2007 failed to pass, but it is probably only a matter of time). 

Beyond the danger of someone speed dialing CPS in a parking lot, it's also that I don't want to spank them; I shouldn't have to.  I do not enjoy it, and it is a last resort, but if rare enough, an effective one.  I want to encourage in them appropriate behavior in public places.  My daughter's wonderful preschool teacher once reminded me that how they behave at home is not nearly as important as how they behave in public.  The latter is the true test.  Therefore, I am heartened when retired parishioners take note of their good behavior in church.  I can trust the oldest three to sit still without making weird noises, and that is no small victory.

The three year old still has occasional moments that try Mommy's soul, like the time I approached the altar for communion and she said, "Can I have a cookie."  Not wanting to miss an opportunity to teach our Catholic faith, I replied, "No, you're not old enough, and it's not a cookie.  It's Jesus.  It just looks like a cookie."  While this may be an admirable preschool level catechism on the doctrine of transubstantiation, it only made my daughter immediately shout "I want a Jesus cookie!"  This kind of outburst is the exception, not the norm, thank you Jesus, and when people compliment my children's good behavior, I do usually credit Catholic masses every Sunday since the womb, not to mention Palm Sunday and the Easter Vigil.  Whenever they start getting antsy, I just whisper to them fiercely and with feeling while pointing at the very crucifix pictured below:

"Look up there at Jesus.  He died on the cross for you.  I bet he wanted to get down and get a drink and he was probably hungry, too, but did he quit?  No, he didn't.  He stayed up there so that you can go and live with Him in Heaven someday, so it's not too much to ask that you sit still for the next few minutes.  God only asks for an hour a week of you sitting still.  It's the least you can do."

If you're Catholic, you are laughing and nodding your head right now, and if you aren't, you probably think that is outrageous guilt.  Well, we all should feel more guilt and less selfish indulgence, thank you very much.  The Oprah-tization of our culture has meant a bit too much glossing over of the importance of sacrifice and guilt if you ask me. 

Despite the praise my angel babies may get in public sometimes, their behavior is almost never up to my standards and often, especially in the grocery store in the late afternoon after I have worked all day with teenagers and just want to get something for dinner and more granola bars and milk to get us through the school week, sometimes, they become the enemy and those aisles are a battlefield. 

There is a possibility you are not familiar with grocery shopping with five children, ages 11, 9, 7, 3 and 1.  You are really missing out on a whole range of frustration and chaos that you do not currently experience.  Come, come.  Look, look, and think of this story next time you see me.  Perhaps you will take pity.  The following details come from an actual trip to the store.  I did not invent anything.  If you listen closely you may hear the artillery and smell the acrid smoke.

Most people think the trouble with kids in the grocery store is that they ask for things.  Most people are absurdly superficial in their understanding of how deep and wide are the skills to annoy that children possess. 

Kids do not just beg for cookies and Cheese-Itz and ice cream and yogurt raisins and every item featured prominently on an end cap at Von's .  Let me just take this moment to thank grocery store market research for knowing exactly how to market to me and my family so as to completely defeat and contradict all good parenting.  If you do not believe me, check out this article on Psychology and the Supermarket.  There is a scientific reason why the Coco Pebbles are on the bottom shelf and the unsweetened Shredded Wheat is on the top.  It is no accident that Little Debbie cakes are displayed on the end of the aisle where you have to stop your cart to grab milk and eggs.

Beyond begging for treats they bicker with each other over who touched whom.  They try to push the baby in the cart while ignoring his screams.  He can't believe his sisters' nerve in trying to steer his cart.  "Who do they think they are?" his red-faced squeals and fat, pounding fists seem to say. An equally popular approach to tormenting Mom while shopping is to try to explain to me every detail of the day.  All four of the children who can talk do this at once, of course, as they be-bop behind angry cart baby and I, in various states of distraction.

One child tries to tell me a funny thing her best friend said when the cafeteria lady threatened everyone with detention if they continued to throw their tater tots at each other. 

Meanwhile, that inspires younger sister to tell me (at the same time) how much she loves tater tots.  She then continues asking if we can buy tater tots for dinner tonight, even after I've said no three or twelve times and am now two aisles further in our shopping odyssey.

Child #2 keeps asking about the tater tots with only slight variations like "Well, then can we get french fries?" 

This request is followed immediately by contributions from the seven year old who has only partially been paying attention.  She will, at this very moment,  pipe up with "Ooohh, I love french fries and you know, Mommy, they have them right over there at the deli and they're already made ...awesome!" A cheery fist pump seals her certainty that I will, of course, go buy three pounds of french fries for them.  The logic is inescapable.  Mom is here looking for food, right?  We're all hungry right?  My sister has just suggested a perfect solution, and I know they're right there because I already asked if I could have some when we first arrived.  It makes sense that mom will do this.

But don't worry, while this inane conversation continues, in fact throughout the entire previous exchange about tater tots and the cafeteria lady and the logic of french fries at 4:45 in the afternoon, my three year old has been touching boxes and asking for any number of things she sees flitting past her antsy, bubbly, rapid- fire, passionate, loving, blink-and-you-miss-it-focus.  She has been trying to
push the cart,
                     pull the cart,
                                       climb the cart,
                                                             ride the cart,
                                                                                 and play chicken with the cart. 

She has also started two likely tantrums and several perfectly pitched whines whenever you have threatened to put her in the cart.  As long as she's not in it, the cart is Scooby and the Gang's Mystery Mobile.  It's Herbie the Love Bug and Thomas the Tank Engine all combined.  However, she doesn't want to actually sit in it!  "Nooooo, I don't waaaaaant to go in the caaaaaaart."  Vowel extension is a predictable feature of three year old angst.  Look it up in a linguistics text; I'm sure it's there.

In fact, let us pause here to enter the mind of a three year old because it really will deepen your appreciation of the grocery store battlefield.  A three year old can best be understood by studying this crucial and oft used phrase,

"But I don't want to  _____________"  Insert whatever you like here:

• go to bed
• eat broccoli
• clean my room
• put on underwear
• come inside when it's raining
• go to bed
• put down the hammer
• stop watching that dancing mouse over and over and over again
• go to bed
• stay off the grocery cart

It does not matter what or when the request is, a three year old does not understand why she should do ANYTHING unless she wants to or feels like it.  "I don't want to" is as soundly argued and reasonable as any sober pronouncements from the Supreme Court.  It makes perfect sense, and it is shocking that you, Mommy, continue to think I should do anything if I don't want to. 

I don't want to go in the cart.  I want some Fruit Loops.  I don't care that they're packed with enough sugar to dissolve my teeth in one bowl.  I don't care that the fruit flavor has been sprayed on in a factory or that cereal that tastes like Pez probably isn't the best choice, nutritionally speaking.  They are at my eye level (thank you, again market research) and they are the latest image in my View Finder. 

Every second is precious and long in the life of a three year old, so simply saying "I am not buying you Fruit Loops" is not enough.  You will have to say it every time you come to the store and you will say it at least once a minute for the rest of this particular shopping excursion. 

So,  I have helped you understand where your three year old is coming from.  It won't make your strong-willed firefly less annoying; she is just now placed in sharper relief.  A clear, maddening picture of her. 

But wait, there's more.  Just like the Ginsu knives, we aren't finished yet!  Let us recap:

Child #1:  Continues to give details about friend's HILARIOUS comment  -- "No mom, this is sooo funny!"
Child #2:  Loves tater tots and wants to make sure you understand.  She's busying lobbying for tater tots while continuing to expertly scope out the store for anything else she can get you to agree to buy in your feeble state.  Her sister is not far behind her:
Child #3:  Lobbying for real live already fried french fries, "Right over there! Don't they smell good, Mom?"
Child #4 Is flitting around the store, playing with the cart and begging for sugar.

Fear not, Dear Reader, in addition to the free shipping and handling, you also get Child #5

Child #5:  Whining, reaching, grabbing, whining, screeching, smearing fig newtons into the cart cover.  Yes, I grabbed fig newtons and started feeding him.  Don't judge me.  At least they weren't Oreos, and fig is a fruit.

Like I said:  war of attrition.  It requires patience in the moment and a long focus.  To yell, to hit or do something big, bold and memorable could end the gadfly questions about french fries, but what will that create in her, later in life?  They do not understand that I am trying to meal plan for seven people while replaying mistakes I made at work and thinking about the housework and grading that wait at home.  They live in the moment.  We adults, we Five Star Generals, do not live in the moment.  We suspend many moments and responsibilities together in ourselves, and my three year old butterfly won't understand why Fruit Loops cause Mom to be so angry.  My seven year old didn't mean to make me cry and spank anybody; they're just french fries.  What's the big deal?  I cannot snap.  I have to breathe and keep coaxing and discussing and loving them into good behavior.

Scary. We wield a lot of power as parents.  The world will tell you that you don't.  They will say Rhianna and Lady Gaga and Facebook and Twitter wield all the cultural power.  Keep telling yourself that, World.  I see young people who respond to the healthy fear of not wanting to disappoint their parents.  It's alive and well in some of them, just as it was in us.  Where a healthy fear and respect of parents is not operating, I will show you drug use, sex, and drinking.  I will show you defiance, detention, and bad grades.  Harvard will not be calling, but you might awaken one night to this on the other end of the line,

"Good evening, ma'am, I am sorry to wake you.  This is Officer..." and your world immediately swirls into sweating and panic.  I do not want to live that life in a few years, so I continue to hold them accountable.  I did not buy french fries or tater tots.  I did not yell at anyone, or sit down on the pharmacy chair and weep, although both sounded appealing.  My three year old ended up having to ride in the cart.  She screamed for a bit, and then she stopped because I said I would leave the entire cart there, march all of us home and put her to bed with a spanking.  She believed me.  Would I have done it?  Yes, if I had to, but when you fight the war of attrition and you try to be consistent and firm, you rarely have to resort to such drastic measures.  They know you mean business. 

In my role as a high school teacher, I often like to say my favorite idea for a bumper sticker is:

Good Teaching Can't Fix Bad Parenting

Our culture often reviles teachers and bemoans the education system at the same time that it asks us to fix all sorts of cultural and psychological ills that come from family, not school.  The boy smoking cigarettes and glaring at adults like they personally deserve nothing but scorn was once that cute three year old begging for Fruit Loops.  If you teach him that "No" means "No" and it does so because you love him and want him to be a good person, perhaps he will not sneer and smoke outside Starbucks in a few years. 

I believe the bumper sticker is true.  However, as the mother of five children who have not reached high school yet, let alone junior high,  I'm holding off on putting it on my own car.  I have high hopes that my children will be good students and citizens far into their futures, but the war continues, and I don't want to declare a premature victory.

S'mores, Like Gold in My Hand

A Lesson in Point of View.  Too much of the time I look around my house and see mess--an Everest of laundry, an embarrassingly persistent pile of “wash by hand” dishes stacked on the counter, a full diaper pail, bathrooms that need scrubbing, a carpet of cheerios, dirty socks and toys where a carpet should be.  My point of view is often tired, cranky and self-loathing or self-pitying depending on the time of the month.  Often as I'm racing to work or frantically trying to get home from work (see Transition Words for a reminder of this chaos) I hear the voice of Katharine Hepburn in my head as she confesses in the best movie ever, The Philadelphia Story: 

"I'm an unholy mess of a girl."

When you are a mother of five who works full time outside the house, you can start to feel like a hot mess, start to resent the perky stay-at-home moms who have time to go for a walk around town in the morning, bouncing past the window with their dogs on leashes, their Starbucks cups and their cute workout shorts from Kohl's. You start to envy the women who get their hair done more than twice a year and who have the time and treasure to actually take their kids to Disneyland.  It's a slippery slope when my point of view starts to see the glass not just as half empty, but as a sippy cup tipped over and leaking milk all over the counter. 

Sometimes though, in unexpected and desperately needed moments, I’m given brief glimpses of the messiness of my life that seem pleasing and comforting, if not downright romantic. 

Yesterday was Memorial Day.  This was the detritus of my life:  Hershey’s chocolate wrappers scattered on the counter, graham crackers smashed on the floor, bamboo sticks with marshmallow stickiness, dishes stacked in the sink, wet laundry languishing in the washing machine, clean and rapidly turning sour.  Yet it was also linguica basted in beer, charcoal smoke, buttery garlic bread crusts on the high chair, Giants baseball--"3-2 pitch and Bumgarner strikes him out…"Grab some pine, meat."

I watched through the window as four children, gathered together in the back yard burying Joey’s chubby leg in the dark soil while making dirt castles and picking dandelions. 

After dinner, I saw four matching ballerina buns through my living room window, four buns perched on the top of four heads while they waited patiently over the Weber, marshmallow sticks in hand, twisting them slowly to achieve the perfect toast.  Marshmallows because, well, have you ever eaten a s'more?  If it's warm and it's a holiday, I am fairly certain there's some kind of local ordinance or maybe even a state law that requires s'mores.  Ballerina buns because Daddy threatened, “Any girl who has her hair down, doesn’t get a s'more.”  If I could use the promise of s'mores for clean rooms and speaking kindly to your siblings without my daughters weighing two hundred pounds each, I would do it. 

S'mores Recipe

Anyway, a quiet family day that ends with grilling and copious consumption of s'mores can make a girl feel downright warm and fuzzy.  The disaster of my house, the bickering of my children, the unholy mess of my life miraculously became a sanctuary from the world that houses beautiful human beings whose very existence keeps me inhaling and exhaling. 

No grand change took place last weekend.  Despite my ferverent prayers, we did not win the Mega Millions or even A Million.  Alice the Maid did not move in, nor did the DIY Network come to rescue my yard or remodel my kitchen.  Heaven knows my daughters are probably bickering like old women right now: 

"No I didn't."
"Yes, you did."
"No, I didn't!"
"Yes, you did!"
Altogether now with feeling...

"MOM!"

The plot didn't change, just my point of view.  In teaching literature point of view is essential and complicated.  First person, third person, omniscient, limited omniscient.  A novel isn't a newspaper or chapter summaries on Pink Monkey Notes; you have some work to do, Dear Reader.

Reading great literature requires an understanding of point of view.  To Kill a Mockingbird is about Scout’s point of view.  If not, it's an entirely different novel.  Mayella Ewell's novel or Tom Robinson's novel or even the memoir of Atticus Finch is not the same.  The best line in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn loses all power without point of view:

 "I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:  'All right, then, I'll GO to hell.'"  (Chapter 30)

In the hands of a naive or passive or lazy reader, those lines may not make you tear up like I do.  Okay, perhaps I'm a bit of a literary nerd, and I'm the only one who cries every time Charlotte dies or Elizabeth Bennet realizes she loves Mr. Darcy, but believe me:  point of view is powerful stuff.  If you need outside evidence, here's a link for you.  As Annie Savoy in Bull Durham would say, "You could look it up."  Literary Point of View

This blog is about point of view, and about my job.  I haven’t posted about my work lately.  Given the title of this blog, I really should.  Basically God has given me bountiful blessings this year: rehired into a job I never would have dreamed I could love so much, a new perspective on my profession, a profession I had grown too comfortable in, a point of view on teaching that had become too routine, even jaded.  My job this year renewed my practice and made me belive this is what my layoff was for, this was what God had in store for me, this wonderful new teaching life. 

Just when it all made sense, I was laid off again and rehired again.  Wonderful right?  Let's have some s'mores and celebrate!  Not so fast.  Here comes a plot twist that would make Charles Dickens proud. My district has not yet decided what position I will return to in the fall.  In fact it's looking like I will be back at my old site. They want me back at the campus I left, the “main” campus, the “comprehensive” school, the Big House. 

Now, to you, Dear Reader, this may sound like I got sent down to the minor leagues but am now being called back up for a starting position in The Show. I am Crash Davis, and I finally get to go back to the bigs.  I should not have to explain this movie reference, but I will for those of you who, in the pretentious, post-Dances with Wolves-director-of-Waterworld-Kevin Costner-era have forgotten his great earlier films.  If you want to understand baseball and watch good movies, you can't go wrong with these:



Great film, even if it's the Dodgers.

But I digress.  Like Crash, I am a veteran.  I’ve done my time in alternative education, and now I “get” to go back to the “real” school.  That’s probably what they thought I would feel.  Before my epiphany year in alternative education, it is what I would have thought I would feel.  [Someone save me from my own syntax!]  Instead, I said, “No thank you.  I’m happier here.” 

Now my point of view becomes crucial.  I can be upset, sad, and frustrated.  I can be daunted by too many students, too many preps and returning to a more stressful job.  Or, I can be resigned to see the beauty in both options.  No matter where I end up next year, and as of this writing I still don’t know, my point of view is the only thing that matters. 

It must be positive and enthusiastic because my students deserve nothing less, and life is too hard to live any other way. 

Unfortunately, my point of view about where I should teach next year does not matter anymore than it did when I was laid off the first two times.  If my point of view had any power, then in the last two years I could have just said, “Wait, I’m a really good teacher.  You don’t want to lose me,” and they would have kept me.  Silly girl.  That’s not how education works.  It’s not how life works either.  Therefore, after dutifully explaining all of the reasons why I should return to my current position next year and generously acknowledging that I would go wherever I am placed, my superintendent offered some more polite version of "Damn straight, you will, Sister, and you'll like it."

Next fall, I will still feel like an unholy mess of a girl because the daily chaos of my life won’t change. Life is messy. The s'mores my children enjoyed last night were messy.  I probably still have marshmallow squished into the couch, and I know there are still graham cracker crumbs on the floor.  They stayed up way too late on a school night, and I know at least 3 of the 5 didn’t brush their teeth before collapsing for the night into a diabetic coma. 

However, those s'mores, those moments with them yesterday, are gifts, colorful jewels.  What would my messy house and chaotic life feel like if I was suddenly diagnosed with cancer or my house burned to the ground or one of my children got sick?  Would I care about Laundry Everest or the three mystery bowls of leftovers at the back of the fridge?  Not likely.  Every messy, crazy stressful moment would be a jewel, or as Joe Banks said of the days he had wasted in worry instead of living his life, they would be “like gold in my hand.” 

If you don’t know this reference you aren’t alone, but I encourage you to watch Joe Versus the Volcano an easily overlooked romantic comedy starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.  (Yes, Janeane Garofalo, I do wish every movie could star Tom and Meg, and you would be a lot less cynical if you embraced that philosophy, too).  Anyway, it has some of the best speeches and sweetest messages about living in the moment.  Like this gem of  a speech when Joe finally quits his miserable job and explains to his boss why:

Either way, alternative education or the Big House, each day will be a sweet, delicious s'more because I have, not just a job, but a profession I love in a beautiful mountain home in the best state in the best country in the world.  My students, my children, my husband and I all deserve a point of view that can generate joy, share love, and embrace adventure.  The Lord has not abandoned me yet, so He must have more important work ahead.  If He finds an unholy mess of a girl to be the place to start, I'm up for the challenge, and happy to be a

Teacher Still Teaching Somewhere

Where Did the Bad Kids Go?

Do you know about "Alternative Education"?  Perhaps you are like I was--a general ed teacher who had a vague sense that there were several other "educational options" for the students who couldn't cut it in the "real" high school.  These places were undoubtedly easier, probably just passing students without making them do any "real" work.  Said students were the "bad" kids---behavior problems, attendance problems, attitude problems.  I and other regular ed teachers would just shake our heads sadly or smirk knowingly when we found "that kid" ended up switching to alternative ed.  My own district has several alternative sites.  I didn't know the differences among them.  They were all the same.  Those "bad" kids were all the same. 

Now, don't get me wrong.  I am not now, nor have I ever been a heartless teacher.  I worked hard to reach all of my students, to differentiate instruction, to reach out to parents and try to help whoever struggled.  However, as I've said in another blog, the kid who desperately wants to learn and might be successful, but has immense personal struggles to overcome, often looks just like the jerk who doesn't care.  My new job in alternative education has made me begin to realize, there actually isn't any jerk who doesn't care.  That kid doesn't exist.  I just thought he did.  I thought he was the one who ended up going away to alternative ed, and I couldn't be bothered with worrying about it.  I worked at the main campus. 

Well, the good Lord has a way of opening our eyes, even when we think we have nothing else to learn on any given subject.  After fourteen years of success as a secondary teacher, I'm pretty smart.  What am I missing?  What could I possibly have to learn aside from some tinkering with my practice here and there?  One layoff, six terrifying months, and one blessed, beautiful rehire later, I realize I'm an idiot thank you very much. 

I now work in alternative ed.  In fact, that "general ed" term I just threw around like an old vocabulary shoe, is a relatively new term for me.  I was just a teacher before; now I realize the distinction.  I have come to undertsand the differences among each of my district's several alternative sites.  I am beginning to see the tensions between the main campus and alternative ed. with new eyes.  Most importantly, I see with glaring clarity the arrogance I possessed toward these places and these students...now my students.  I know where the bad kids went.  They came to me, and they were never "bad" to begin with. 

That kid who was pugnacious every morning?  He has never had one positive adult role model.  More to the point, no one has said anything helpful or loving to him...in years...maybe ever.  Does that excuse his behavior?  Nope.  Does that mean he isn't my problem?  Double nope.

The girl who sleeps with everything on campus and sees every female as a threat and every sexual encounter as some twisted kind of love?  She was abused and has never been loved the right way, so the wrong way has become a sad replacement for the real thing.  Does this excuse spreading STDs and ugly rumors?  Nope, but I can't just roll my eyes back at her either. 

The girl who never came to class?  She's living in a car. 

The boy who always fell asleep in first period?  He works nights to feed his family..really he does.  He's not working to pay for car insurance, but oatmeal and diapers for his baby brother. 

The kids who can't focus?  They're hungry.  Ask them; they'll tell you, and people who are really hungry don't lie about it. 

The one who does brilliant work but is on the verge of dropping out because of attendance has chronic migraines. 

The other one is taking care of his disabled mom. 

Still another has been smoking pot since age ten because his Dad thought it would be okay, and the other one who's an alcoholic started drinking because she was so sad about her mom's addiction. 

Really?  Yeah, really.

I thought it was just ABC after school specials.  Wait, no, those were tame by comparison.  I think in my former job there were a lot of valid reasons for my being less empathetic and more cynical about the kids who now make up my entire day. 

The main reason is that I had to be.  Self-preservation dictated that when I had to serve almost two hundred students per day, I didn't have the luxury of getting to know each one's story.  I saw so many that I had to insulate myself from the knowledge of how bad some of their lives could get.  Plus, there seemed to be very little I could do when considering how few minutes of one-on-one contact I actually had. 

Beyond self preservation, I also knew I wasn't the last option for students.  When a student began slipping through the cracks, I would contact the counselor and eventually, if the student was unsuccessful enough, he or she would just disappear from my roll sheet and end up somewhere else.  I could be safe in the knowledge that the system had somewhere for that kid to be.  I didn't know if it was the best place, but it was another place after I failed, after the "main," "regular," school failed. After the students fail here, they can still perhaps succeed somewhere else. 

Today I now work in that mystical "somewhere else."   I am the place the "bad kids" went.  I am the last stop, or close to it.  There are a few options in alternative ed, but really we're the last line of educational defense before dropping out, giving up, moving on without a diploma.  There is nowhere else to go; we're it.  As a result I spend a lot more time on the phone coaxing my students to come in when they are absent.  I know more parents by their first names than I ever have before.  I know where most of my students physically live and with whom they live.  I'm learning to read subtle clues about what they aren't telling me, about whether contacting the parent will be helpful or end up in abuse. 

I made an English muffin with peanut butter this week because my student announced when she arrived that she was hungry.  Students used to say that all the time, but it wasn't really my problem.  Today, we had extra English muffins in the kitchen, and we always have some peanut butter, so she munched on breakfast while we discussed quadratic equations.  Later, we took a "field trip" outside to get some fresh air and walk up and down the lawn as a physical representation of adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers.  Those signs are just directions, and passing over zero is a magical journey where addition becomes subtraction sometimes. 

Nevermind the strange miracle that I'm teaching algebra.  My new position allows me to teach algebra for an entire hour if I need to, and my student will not be spacing out from lack of breakfast because I made it for her.  How is this possibly the sad "continuation" place I used to think it was?  How can this be anything but a wonderful place where students are saved, one by one, hour by hour? 

It seems to me the mission of my new alternative universe is to undo all the damage high school has done to my students, and to be there for them in ways that all good teachers long to be and try to be, but are prevented from being because of the factory-like necessities of a comprehensive high school.  When you have 200 and the school has 900 students, they somehow cease to be students in the same way that I cease to be a human being to the lady at the DMV.  They are units, ADA,  or test scores.  He's "below basic," she's "an AP kid,"he's "ELL" and has an "IEP", and on and on.  I know most teachers in my former place don't feel this way, but for every general ed teacher "the system" can generate an insidious callousness that is hard to ignore.

Lest this blog become a simplistic endeavor that champions the miracle workers in alternative ed and condescends to the comprehensive site I used to occupy, let me reassure you:  my revelations are about me, not everyone.  This epiphany was personal.  My new position has reminded me why I wanted to be a teacher in the first place.  The small, crucial moments so hard to find and celebrate as a general ed teacher (see my attempts to teach rhetorical devices in A Problem Like Maria) are much more frequent when you teach one student at a time.  The drug problems, or relationship crises that I used to try to push beyond my classroom doors cannot be pushed aside here; they are the glaring reasons why my students are here in the first place.  I have to work with my students' disabilties, their poverty, their crumbling families, and their poor attendance.  It's messy work, often sad work, and always exhausting work. Yet it's still one of the most important jobs in our society. 

I like my new job in ways I could never have imagined.  When my former colleagues seem surprised by this, I remember how I used to feel about "alternative ed," and am reminded of how little I knew even after fourteen years of teaching.  One of the reasons for choosing teaching as a career was that I wanted to be a lifelong learner.  Teaching in alternative education has uprooted all I thought I knew and reminded me of how much I do not know.  Not just math or how metamorphic rock is formed.  Not just why Newton is important or why the acronym FOIL is my best friend when factoring.  I am learning again how much power my profession can generate in a student's life.  Unfortunately I am also learning how much more need and sadness and injustice exists in the world around me, than I thought there was, even in my small, beautiful mountain place.  I learn everyday at work.  I laugh everyday at work.  I think deeply everyday at work. I am challenged and victorious and a miserable failure everyday at work.  So my new place in education is challenging and scary and a miraculous temblor that has shaken me up and made me so glad to be a

Teacher Not Teaching Now Teaching