"Dark Day"

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

"Dark Day"

Today was not my finest day. I did not show grace under pressure, but instead cracked under it, having one meltdown after another and wallowing much of my waking hours. As I remarked to my friend, Kate, referring to a former maudlin student-- who took to wearing giant sunglasses on days she was really down--and her own classification of such days, today was my "dark day."

I've come down very far since last Monday morning when I peed on a stick and found out I was pregnant. Besides some anxiety about the prospect of going through pregnancy and childbirth and infancy once again, as well as some worry over miscarriage (since I had one back in June, and my doctors are currently acting as though the one incident is going to be a new trend for me and have had me back and forth for blood work as if to ''prove" that I'm still really pregnant this time) I felt fine physically. I even remarked a few times, "Wow. I don't even feel pregnant!"

As it were, I spoke too soon.

On Saturday, the nausea started edging in. Just a little--just on the periphery, such that one could almost miss it. "Is that nausea?... Naaa." Then on Sunday it pushed in a little more, flirting with me enough to make me start to worry. "Ok, that's definitely nausea... but maybe it isn't going to get worse. Maybe I can ignore it and it'll go away." Monday it amped up some more and asked me out. "No, this is a tenacious little bastard." Tuesday it showed up at my door. And today, well, today it knocked me on my ass, pushing its way inside my house, up into my bedroom, and settled in nice and cozy in my bed. Metaphorically speaking.

This morning I woke up at 5:15am and had to immediately eat a bowl of cereal so my stomach had something in it, even though I was going back to bed. But I can't fall asleep when I feel like that. Then, around 10, I woke up and felt sick to my stomach so I went into the bathroom. Brian called from work, wanted to talk about some leaky pipe situation we have going on (literally; not metaphorically) and I was a jerk to him. I said, "Look, I don't know if it's leaking right now; I didn't look at it yet. I feel like I'm going to puke. Can't I call you later?" He wanted to stay on the phone with me. Then I burst out, voice breaking with self-pitying tears, "I feel horrible! I can't do this for 34 more weeks! I KNEW I didn't want to get pregnant again! I was right!" He tried to console me, "I'm sorry you feel bad, but on the bright side, it won't be for 34 more weeks!" Angry that he was trying to be reasonable, I said with caustic sarcasm, "Oh yeah, because after the first trimester's nausea, everything is completely wonderful and there's no further discomfort with having to get up to piss 10 times a night and not being able to sleep because I'm huge!" He let me get off the phone then.

That was nothing, though, compared to the poor sot who called at 10:30.

I'd just gotten another bowl of cereal and crawled miserably back into my bed, feeling like utter crap and just wanting not to feel like puking. Then the phone rings. I check caller ID and see that it's CitiCards. CitiCards, it should be noted, have called every day for the last 5 days. The first time was at least in the afternoon, but was right after Brian left so they said they'd call back. The next 4 were in the morning anywhere between 9 and 10:30. The past 2 days, I'd angrily lifted the receiver only to slam it back down, merely to stop the ringing. With me, calls from businesses of any kind that come before 11:30 piss me off. Particularly because if they come early, they could wake Lily (and us), which means a disturbance. Add to this disturbance, though, the fact that now I feel like vomiting pretty much the second I wake up, so if something wakes me, I feel sick immediately, and thus it is an even greater disturbance. But I digress...

So it rings; it's CitiCards; I pick it up.

"Hello--" I spit out, not at all welcoming.

"Oh, hi, is Brian in?" asks the unsuspecting man.

"No, he's not. And can you people do me a favor, and if you're going to call every single day, can you at least do it in the afternoon or evening so you don't wake me and my kid?!" I ask with great anger.

There was a slight pause. But rather than saying, "Oh, sorry, we'll try back later--or never" he says, "Oh... well, is this Natalie?" That just sent me over the edge. He's persisting with this call??

"Yes, it is, but I don't want to talk to you! I have morning sickness and feel like crap and I don't want to deal with you people!!!" And I slammed the phone down, feeling a momentary burst of satisfaction. There, I told him!

Then I started sobbing into my cereal.

What exactly did that little outburst prove? I mean, yes, those pushy phone bastards need to let it go and quit bugging me, but he's just doing his job. I didn't have to be such a jerk about it. It isn't like yelling at him made my nausea go away. In fact, I just felt like a huge ass after.

I indugled in my little pity party until I choked on my cereal since it went down the wrong tube, then I blew my nose and tried to start my day.

I called a friend and told her the story right after, and cried when I relayed the story to her voicemail. When I spoke to her live later in the day, she said she saved the message because it was actually quite funny. She also said she was glad I'd told off that phone operator. Despite the support, I still feel stupid. (It kind of reminds me of the time I was 7 or 8 and my mom's leg started bleeding after her operation. I ran out of the house, found my neighborhood kid pals outside, and screamed at them something like what do they know? My mom's leg was bleeding! Yelling about it seemed, at the moment, the only viable solution, but was, in fact, no solution at all.) Ah well.

The rest of the day I spent attempting to eat foods more substantial than cereal. For lunch, I managed an oriental chicken salad from Applebees (which didn't sit so well), and, for dinner, cream chipped beef and a triangle of Belgian waffle from a diner (which sat a little better, but not well either). Whilst brushing my teeth, I threw up the vitamin I'd just taken a few minutes earlier. In laying down to sleep, I felt heart-burny, so I decided to get up and write this confession, er, blog.

Tomorrow I have an ultrasound, an hour before which I have to drink 32oz of water and then not pee it out until after they press on my stomach and bladder with the wand thing. Should be good times.

I'm hoping that when I go to bed in a couple minutes, I get a great night's sleep, and that when I wake up, I feel fine, graceful, and light.

Otherwise I'm going to have to call that girl and borrow her gigantic sunglasses--for anonymity after I act like an idiot to strangers.

Posted by Natalie M at 11:18 PM 1 comments 

Summer is A-Coming

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Summer is A-Coming

I am obliged to wake up just 14 more times this school year and trek to work.

3 of those are half days (2 days of finals and graduation day); 1 of them is a full day without students (thanks a lot to central admin for making us go in when the students are done the preceding Friday. ASSHOLES.)

Anyhoo, that basically leaves just 10 days of school left. I'm mostly done everything. All I still have to do is finish teaching Acts 4 and 5 of Macbeth, test on it, and prepare them for the final exam. I also still have one vocabulary list to get through, though I'm contemplating scrapping the last one so there's more time to finish everything else and no tension that we won't finish. (Even though we'll probably easily finish.)

For the past 2 weeks I've been so proud of myself as I've been diligently and purposefully teaching them everything they need to know for the Macbeth test and drawing for them all the relevant thematic conclusions. Each lesson, as I knowledgably review plot details, explain quotes, and discuss recurring images and ideas, I inwardly pat myself on the back, confident in the knowledge that I'm doing a good job making the play come alive for them. I inwardly applaud how I've changed my lessons yet again, using past experiences to make this time even more meaningful than last time, not assuming they are making the knowledge leaps themselves, but really helping them to put the pieces together so they know how to read Shakespeare. I stop to solicit questions after each scene, and I keep the wait time open so shy kids will take the time to ask, or people processing will have time to realize they have a question. I get a little thrill each time I recite a line that's similar in concept to another line, because I told them to take notes on these connections and I happen to know that their unit test--designed by me--asks them to trace these quotes as I've outlined them, literally, at least 20 times by now. Today, though, in and among my self-congratulations, I realized something quite glaringly: all of my efforts will be for naught: they aren't listening to a damned word I'm saying.

As I looked into the sea of faces today, there was a boy fully asleep (I even used him as a prop in the banquet scene when Banquo's ghost is sitting in Macbeth's spot at the table; I said, "Wait, let's use him since he looks dead anyway." Everyone had a chuckle at his expense--he didn't budge.); there were tons of side conversations taking place; people were doing homework for other classes; people were staring into space. In a way, it was almost as if I was Banquo's ghost and Macbeth at the same time--nobody else could see me and I was the only one who knew I was there, but I continued talking nonsense anyway.

At this point in the year, the students are already done. That's unfortunate because it means that in not paying attention in class, they miss my lessons on Macbeth and, therefore, ask idiotic questions like, "Wait--you said he traveled to England. So where is they now?" (The answer is, of course, Scotland, as Macbeth is the King of Scotland, but whatever.) They don't know the names of the characters. They don't know major plot points. They don't see the connections between quotes. They haven't been writing anything down that I've said to write down. They pretend, sometimes, to be writing, but I know they aren't. Today, one boy was talking to his friend and I told him to be quiet and pay attention or I was moving them apart. He said, "What?! I'm listening. I'm taking notes on everything you said!" and held up his notebook. I said, "Really? In your JOURNAL?" His friend cracked up, he smiled sheepishly, and said, completely unconcerned, "Oh, um, looks like you got me there, Ms. M. That one's on me!" And so it goes.

But the good news is that it is, indeed, going. Time is zipping along and before I know it, it'll be the last day and I can rejoice that summer break has finally arrived.

Something weird happens to me in the spring. First, I get really drowsy from the change in weather. So sleepy that I can barely function and I get concerned that I'm seriously ill. This phenomenon hangs on for a few weeks and then my body must acclimate, and all at once I have energy stores from somewhere deep inside. It isn't that I'm not tired; it's more like I have a desire to stay up until the sun goes down. I notice myself staying out later, eating dinner later, staying up later into the night. I start to think, "Well, if I'm tired tomorrow, it's no big deal. We're almost done."

The same type thing happens to me at school in the spring. First, I get really tired of all the shit excuses, poor work, bad attitudes, and the like. This phenomenon hangs on for a few months and then I become numb to it, so that I no longer seem to notice. It isn't that it doesn't bother me; it's more like I have a desire to preserve a shred of my sanity and personal happiness so I'm not a miserable hag at home. I notice myself grading fewer assignments, not bringing work home, talking to my friends during my plan instead of planning. I start to think, "Well, there's only another month or so. We're almost done."

And now, here we are. There's light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm going toward it. Just fourteen work days stand between me and a heavenly break from the madness. We're almost done!

Posted by Natalie M at 8:25 PM 1 comments 

Labels: bad students, end of school, summer

Frustration Incorporation Irritation* Nation

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Frustration Incorporation; Iratation Nation

Well, it's paper-grading time again. This is, as a rule, always a bad time. It's feeling lately, though, that these times are getting worse and worse.

The first semester of this school year, when I had a parade of whiny, entitled kids run to the guidance department to tell on me for giving them the low grades they earned on their shoddy papers, sort of scarred me. I consider myself very fair with my grading. There is an expectation which I set forth at the onset, and I help and guide and conference along the way. There is a level of quality that I expect to see when I collect good copies. When that level is not reached, the grade goes down incrementally based on just how far off the expectation it is. Then, when kids get their graded papers returned to them, there's a strange level of surprise and cries of "But I worked hard on that!" Well, sorry, but it wasn't hard enough- I don't know what to tell you.

This semester hasn't been as bad with the complaints, but the papers have been worse! The first paper--a literary analysis on a short story--was a nightmare for me from beginning to end. I did more work than they did, for sure. I started by framing each and every short story and our discussion of it from the standpoint of whatever literary device I knew that particular story would be analyzed on the paper (since, of course, I knew the paper prompts while we went through the unit). So each kid had copious notes and examples of how the target device was being used effectively for every story. Then, when it was time to start writing the papers, I gave them access to a guide to writing such a paper, reviewed this document in class with them, showed them--step by step and piece by piece, from the introduction to topic sentences to integration of textual evidence to transitions to concluding sentences to conclusion--how to craft and each part of the paper. Then, after the broken down part, I went through a completed and effectively crafted example paper for them, color-coding it by part (transitions, topic sentences, evidence, etc, each getting a color) so that one could see simply by looking at the colors that each paragraph had all the same pieces. I taught them (and gave them a handout for their future reference) how to incorporate and properly cite their textual evidence. Then I conferenced with them about their thesis statements to be sure they were headed in the right direction on the paper. Then I conferenced with them about their outlines to be sure they were still ok, giving feedback on quote selection and topic sentences. Then I required a rough draft edited by themself and one other person with that other person also drafting a paragraph articulating what the paper seemed like it was about being an outsider reading it (so students could make sure that what they were meaning to say is what they were actually saying and could fix it before). Then the final paper was due.

One would imagine--and the one in question here was me--that the papers would be of a good caliber because of all the lead-in work we'd done. I was wrong. They were very disappointing. I struggled through them, shaking my head at how they didn't answer the question that was asked, didn't take feedback I'd offered along the way, didn't make modifications after their reader indicated that their paper needed changes, didn't cite things correctly or incorporate their evidence appropriately, didn't edit before turning it in, didn't meet page requirements, didn't didn't didn't... didn't do a good job.

I was disgusted and upset at that experience (particularly as that is the easier paper to write of the 2 core papers!), and I vowed that the second experience would not be as bad. I also vowed that I wasn't doing as much work with conferencing (which ate up a lot of class time and my own personal time and attention) since it clearly hadn't made much of a difference anyway since they aren't willing to make changes along the way due to laziness. I determined, though, that maybe the approach was part of the problem--maybe they would have had less difficulty with paper content had THEY known the questions for the papers as we worked on them in class, the way I had known them. Even though I taught to the paper topics, they didn't always know that's what I was doing.

For the second paper, then, my first order of business was to decide that I was going to give them the paper topic question up front before we even read the literature that they'd be writing on. That way, they could constantly read with a specific purpose and through the lens of the paper. The second order of business was to assess the previous results from past compare-contrast papers. Those papers are classically not very good. Why, I wondered? I know why: because I usually have them compare 2 pieces of literature, and those 2 pieces are often in verse (poetry) form, so maybe they'd have better things to say if they didn't have so much working against them. So I chose a prose version of Beowulf (one that I usually do with the Basic kids, which is certainly accessible to Academic level students) and decided to have them compare images of light and dark within in it (which are so prevalent that to miss them would mean one didn't read the text) which is also something I've done with Basic, so, again, Academic should be smoothe sailing on it. I organized charts for them to track light and dark images, and we read the text and their class discussions were really on point. I was feeling hopeful. Closer to the end, I gave them a bullet list of what should go in each paragraph so that when they were drafting over the weekend or late at night the night before, they'd know precisely what I was looking to see.

Even though I was backing off of the conferencing check-in points (since I didn't have time to conference anymore), I still chunked the assignment for them since they are inept at time management. First I had them draft their theme statements (after having a lesson on it), then I had them write body paragraphs one and two (which were due 5 days before the paper and which I checked and gave minor feedback on), then I had them write the intro and body 3 paragaphs (which were due the day before the paper and which I didn't check). On paper hand-in day, 8 students didn't hand it in! The papers have been gradually trickling in the rest of the week, but as of yesterday, 2 girls still didn't do them. Have I mentioned that, as a core assignment, this paper is worth 10% of their grade FOR THE COURSE???

As I've been grading them (since Wednesday. They are averaging Cs with me being generous in the grading), I've become increasingly disgruntled. It's as though I didn't give them any instruction at any point in time. I might as well have said, "Write a paper on this book. But don't bother reading the book!" Here's the major issues I've seen:

• No theme statement (which is obviously an issue since body 3 is supposed to prove their theme!)
• Weak/missing/or off-task topic sentences (when someone puts on a requirement sheet "a topic sentence that expresses that lightness means goodness" or "a topic sentence that expresses that darkess means evil" is there really a lot of room for confusion?)
• Examples in the light paragraph don't actually contain lightness in them; examples in the dark paragraph don't contain darkness in them
• No connection back to theme in body 3, but instead weakly done, lame conclusion-type coverage in a paper that doesn't ask for a conclusion
• No explanation of the significance of the quotes selected to show light/dark
• Less than 3 quotes in the body paragraphs
• Misspellings, factual errors, use of 2nd person, contractions, not color-coded, incorrect font/margins, missing name and page number in header--pretty much no editing and formatting directions taken into account
• Inability to meet the minimum page requirement of a whopping 2.5 pages

One kid so far wrote about a different topic altogether and didn't cover light and dark but instead the duality of nature (which was the topic of the example theme statement I supplied them, so it isn't even as though he's being original!). One kid turned his paper in 2 days late and it was 3/4 of a page short AND missing 2 quotes. One kid turned in his paper with the pages out of order.

Today's batch just got worse and worse and worse. Ds and Fs abounded.

Reading them, I felt like someone was playing a cruel joke on me.

Not only did I re-structure this paper for them and choose a different, easier topic for them than I've done with kids in the past, but I thought that I'd accounted for everything and put it in writing and gave everyone a copy and explained and modeled and chunked and lowered expectations to such a degree that, in my mind, I'd created an idiot-proof task. I set these kids up for success.

AND THEY STILL FAILED!

It's hard not to take this personally. I can't help thinking of it and wondering what I may have done differently to make it easier still for them. But I know--and I know to my very core--that this is NOT my fault. This is not a case where there's been a miscommunication and they didn't understand what I wanted. This is not a case where the material was too difficult for them to discuss intelligently. They had the standards. They'd done good work with the material in class and already discussed it intelligently. No, this is a case where I was asking them to do something, to show a product, to put a little effort into what they were doing. This was a case where I was asking them tothink. But that is something that they just will not do. And how dare I ask them to do it?

I can say with some degree of certainty that I have spent longer grading and commenting on some of their papers than they did writing them in the first place. I am absolutely giving them a lot more thought.

I don't know when it happened that thinking and working and effort became impossible tasks. But I do know that I have just about had it. I'm at the end of my rope.

I'm not even supposed to enforce my late penalties (even though I'm doing it anyway) because the shift is toward separating so-called behavioral characteristics (responsibility, meeting deadlines, being awake in class, for instance) from summative assessments (the paper quality itself). This means, for example, that if the kid who handed in his paper on Thursday had written an A paper, that he should get an A on it despite it being 2 days late. The penalty for his lateness should be addressed somewhere separate.

I think that's complete and utter bullshit. Here's my example: Say "Bob" is in the business world and is assigned a presentation for a Monday meeting at 9am when the dude from Tokyo is flying in. "Bob," though, isn't prepared at 9am for the meeting. Thankfully, "Bob" has the presentation ready on Tuesday and it's freaking excellent--the best presentation ever. Oh but wait-- the dude from Tokyo flew home Monday at noon and the company lost a million-dollar deal. Is that going to be ok? Is "Bob's" job efficacy going to be measured on the presentation he had ready the day after it was due or the one that wasn't ready when it was due? Exactly. Time management is part of life. Some people argue that school isn't business. I disagree with that, too. Schoolis business. It's the business of learning. And time management and organization and chunking assignments and meeting deadlines and creating a quality product in the time allotted to one are all lessons of life.

It doesn't matter what we do in the classroom, because kids today just don't care. They don't want to learn. They don't want to work. They don't want to think. And if we try to hold them accountable, we're the bad guys.

Oh yes, paper time is a very, very bad time indeed. It makes one face the hard, ugly truths of this job.

Uglier still: I have 17 more to go.

Posted by Natalie M at 10:19 AM 0 comments 

Labels: angry, bad students

All of My Favorite Things Rolled into One Day!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

All of My Favorite Things Rolled into One Day!

As much as I complain about the type of students at my school and their pervasive apathy and rudeness, there are a few rare days when I feel a glimmer of hope that the future is not entirely lost, when I see a spark of what makes high school great, when the type of student I was is reflected in the students I see before me.

One of the days I am inspired and rejuvenated and genuinely glad to be in school with these kids is the day of the annual Jazz and Poetry Festival. This 'festival' is really just a day, and it usually falls in April (which is National Poetry Month, National Jazz Month, andNational Library Month, hence the inspiration for the festival date) though this year it fell in March due to PSSA scheduling for April, but everything about it is fantastic and wonderful.

This year I spent most of my day at the festival because I signed up to bring all 3 of my classes to it (though block 3 was full so I couldn't bring them, so we had our own little mini-festival in my room after lunch where we just read poetry from online) and I went down during my plan period to enjoy some more.

When you walk into the transformed library--decorated with string lights, a trellis, and candles, and emptied of computers-- the jazz band, a very talented group of students, is grooving under the tutelage of Jason, the band director. Then, it's time for the poetry to start. Rob, the English department chair who co-organizes this event, and Melody and Michelle, the other co-organizers, introduce the readers. One by one, students get up and read--or recite or perform!--a poem. At the end of the session, the jazz band plays another piece as students leave the library.

This year, it felt like the festival was made for me and my students because the focus of each session contained something relevant to something we'd just studied.

Rob opened the first session about "ordinary things," sharing how poems about ordinary, everyday things have been in existence for hundreds of years, from the time the Anglo-Saxons would sit around their fires after pillaging and warring and would compose poems about everyday objects. (As it were, my class had spent part of the previous week reviewing these very poems!)

During the second session, when I was in attendance with my honors class just a day after finishing our satire unit, Jason led the jazz band in its performance of a satirical jazz piece! He set the stage telling the students the back story on its creation. It involved Plessy v Ferguson (the "separate but equal" ruling) and how when racial integration actually came around, the Arkansas governor mobilized the National Guardagainst the African-American students who were attempting to attend school! The satirical piece by Mingus has a repeated 'dum dum dum' sound running through the background to mock the idiocy of the people.

Other highlights, which made me laugh and cry (yes, actual tears) and marvel:

During one session, 2 boys got up and recited (from memory!) Whitman's "O Captain, My Captain." They did a little staging, whereby they started off standing side by side with their hands clasped behind their backs. Then, as the first boy recited the first stanza, he stepped forward. At the end of his stanza, he stepped back. The second boy stepped forward to recite the second stanza, at the end of which the first boy stepped forward next to the other boy and they recited the third stanza in unison. It was brilliant!

There was also a fun little ditty of Mary Howitt's "The Spider and the Fly." For this one, 3 girls stood at the front: one took on the role of the spider, one the fly, and one the narrator. The girl who was the fly affected this silly little voice when she would say, "oh no no!" and it was cute.

One of the faculty members--a dude named Bill who is typically a douche--did an interesting reading of a poem with oboe accompaniment. His reading was blah, but the oboe in the background sounded really cool.

Another faculty member--a dude named Mark who is not a douche and who reminds me of my old AP Euro teacher--read 2 poems. I particularly enjoyed his rendition of Dickinson's "I'm Nobody. Who Are You?" because there was something about the way he read it that made the words come to life and made the poem actually make sensein a way that it has never made sense to me in the past.

A girl read Stiles' "The Far Right Corner of Heaven" which is about a dad who passed away and whose child is talking about meeting him in heaven. There was something about the words that made me think of my own dad (who is not dead) and I could picture myself taking solace in the words if he were to pass. I know that sounds weird, but it was just moving.

The 4th session was not like the others. It was held in the auditorium and featured the choir. I went down during my planning period because I didn't want to miss it. Scott, the choral director, set the stage for their performance of Agee's "Sure on This Shining Night." He explained how different arrangements emphasize different aspects of the poem--some giving more attention to the first stanza, others featuring a refrain of the first line, etc--and how the rhythms can vary and how the voices change. Then they performed the first stanza of each arrangement to highlight the difference. Next they sang each song in its entirety. They were all beautiful in their own ways. I cried during the second version when the soloist's lovely voice rang out in the auditorium. It was so beautiful, and I had fond memories of my own experiences in choir.

As someone who loves words and loves music, this day was a dream come true for me. I enjoyed every second of the experience. I relished the sounds being produced by the talented musicians in our school. I soaked in the words of the students who aren't usually in the spotlight because they aren't athletes. I luxuriated in the thought that, for this one day, poetry was being considered "cool" and "fun" and "enjoyable" instead of "lame" and "hard" and "boring." I was giddy and moved and genuinely content. I was proud to be part of the school and honored to be able to experience this event alongside my students and colleagues.

To me, the day was wonderful and magical and... pure poetry.

Posted by Natalie M at 7:48 AM 0 comments 

Labels: good day

A Friday Night Freakfest!

Sunday, March 28, 2010

A Friday Night Freakfest!

For the past several months (since around Thanksgiving), my friend (and colleague) Kate and I have had a standing Friday night date. She comes to my house at 6:30, and we take my car to Serenity where we enjoy the 7pm meditation class. When it ends around 8:15, we head to Starbucks where we get a tasty drink. Then we drive back to my house, have our "weekend hug," and Kate goes home to her husband and I go inside to my family. It's rather a nice ritual we have going.

(A side note on the "weekend hug"-- neither of us is big on contact with others (beyond, you know, our families and whatnot), and we reserve this type of contact for 'big' times--the birth of a child, congrats on a wedding, the loss of a loved one, extreme sadness or anxiety, or accompanying holiday gift-giving. We certainly aren't like our students who hug in between classes or every morning as though it has been years since they last saw one another. But for whatever reason, perhaps because of its pseudo-date nature--ha!--or because it's something that doesn't have to do with school, we ritually lean in for the one-armed hug each week as our 'bye- have-a-nice-weekend!' The other hand is, of course, clutching the delish Starbucks and bags with our meditation blankets.)

Anyhoo, when we first started attending, the pool of participants was quite small. It was just us and the 2 "snotty ladies"--a blond and a brunette. The second week we went, the snotty ladies were missing, but there was a man there. I'm sorry to say that I spent this week in a completely UNrelaxed state, with one eye cracked open, convinced that this man was going to assault me, Kate, and our instructor during our time together. After all, it was just us and him and nobody else was around. As it turns out, I was soon to discover, this is one docile dude: calm, relaxed, and seemingly peace-loving; thus, my fear of Tim that first night was unfounded.


As the weeks went on, it was pretty routinely us, Tim, and the 2 snotty ladies who, despite seeming uppity, became comfortably so. I feel like the turning point may have been the night the instructor had us all lay flat while dangling a mystical stone over our heart chakra. I'm pretty sure that's the night we did the "loving kindness" meditation and all of us ended up crying through it. It was as though we bonded over our intense emotions, even though it wasn't very interactive at all.


Kate and I grew comfortable with this new crew. Some nights they came, some nights they didn't. Once it was just us and the instructor's husband--that was the first night we "shreemed" (a mantra for abundance), although even with such a tiny group, I couldn't bring myself to say the word aloud. (I did it the next week, though, and it felt good.)


Then came a weird night with some new, annoying characters. This was the night that the instructor had us lay down. First off, this was a negative experience because everyone seemed to have some pretty intense gas pressure going on in their stomachs, so there was a chorus of stomach noises from all around the room (thankfully not accompanied by any smells...) In addition to the tumultuous tummies, there were the terribly distracting snores. Tim was one of the worst offenders of this, but worse than him was the character known as "the pregnant lady." This woman sat in the middle of the room, and seemed clearly never to have meditated before. First she had a coughing fit. Instead of leaving the room, she remained and tried to work it out, shattering any semblance of relaxation anyone in the room had managed to get going. In an effort to clear her throat, she took gulps of water. Her drinking was more a glugging, the kind one can hear across the room moving into the mouth and down the gullet in a disgusting glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug. Then, soon after, she fell asleep and snored the snore of a 300 pound truck driver, the kind of snore one generates when mocking a snoring person. Upon leaving class that night, Kate wryly remarked, "Is it wrong to want to murder a pregnant person?" (Not if it's THAT pregnant person, I think!)


Thankfully, she didn't show up the next week. And by this time, our now-familiar, no-longer-offensive-to-us snotty ladies had ceased to come too. But, unfortunately, a new character did. Some lady who sat next to Kate and who stinks and also needs to clear her throat and sneeze a lot. She insists on laying down to meditate (even though it's clear our instructor doesn't want us to lay down--especially after the unfortunate snoring night...). The 2nd week this woman came, she had a carton of eggs with her. I know that when I meditate, I like to have groceries there on the floor next to me... The week of the eggs, the woman's friend came, too. 15 minutes late. (The next week, Smelly Egg Lady sat across the room from Kate instead of next to her. Thank God for small miracles!)


The next week the worst character of all arrived: obnoxious Buddha wannabe woman, who refuses to sit on a pillow, sit against the wall, or even smile. She sits cross-legged the whole time, with her hands palms up and resting on her knees, her middle finger and thumb making the circle shape, her eyes raised as if toward heaven (which, conveniently, also makes it so that she is quite literally looking down her nose at everyone else in the room.) This woman is loathesome and casts an air of discomfort in the room.


This bitch has taken to inviting equally obnoxious friends with her to class. (It never ceases to amaze me how much I find myself disliking people I don't even really know!)


All of this leads me to this past Friday's class.

Kate and I frequently tout the virtues of our class to our friends at work. About a month ago we made plans to go for a pedicure on Friday after work, then grab dinner, and then go to meditation. Our friend, Aubrey, who went with us for the pedis, was also on board for the rest of the night's events.


At dinner, we regaled Aubrey with tales of the annoying cast of characters--Tim, Smelly Egg Lady, Annoying Pregnant Woman, Loathesome Buddha Bitch--but ended on a note that people don't always come each week, that we haven't seen the pregnant chick since that first time, etc.


Fast forward to the class. We walk in and set up against our favorite wall and look around. It's a packed house (for this place, anyway); sadly, it was packed with all of our least favorites. Ms. Preggo was back again; the Egg lady and her late friend (who was late again, I might add), were both there, although this time without any groceries; and the Buddha wench was there, too. (In fact, as we were entering the room, she was walking out of it on the way to the bathroom between the Tai Chi class that she attended right before it. I asked her, "Are you guys done in there?" She ignored me completely. Yep, that's about right.) This week, she'd invited this ridiculous penis-head: a bald man wearing jeans and carrying a yoga mat. They had a pre-class chat about the book he'd brought with him (that he bought at a bookstore on South Street!). It was all very annoying.


Class started. Baldy started laying down in corpse pose on his mat. Right in front of me, I might add. Preggo Pop started across the room in the middle, but quickly moved along the same wall as us, only down about 15 feet. Jennifer, the instructor, started the guided breathing. Then Preggy McPreggerson started the phlegm-fest. Cough cough cough. Hack. Cough. Here we go again! Then a quick glug glug, sputter, for effect. Across the room, Leggo my Eggo sneezes. In front of me, the Bald Eagle rises into bridge pose (because doing yoga during meditation is normal! NOT!) A few moments of blessed silence ensue, but then I start to notice the strange clicking noise. It takes a few minutes, but I diagnose it as, essentially, the sound of the back of one's throat being partially blocked while one is breathing out one's mouth. Who is it? The pregnant one, of course.


Class dragged on and on and on, for what seemed like days. I had resorted to my own in-head guided meditation to avoid the madness all around me. Finally, it was over.


In the parking lot, Kate and Aubrey shared all the strange poses the bald dude was doing in front of me. Thankfully, my eyes had been closed. Aubrey explained that she hadn't been able to get into the meditation at all. Kate and I admitted sadly that this was not a representative experience, and that all of the worst people had been there. We felt embarrassed the way one is when one feels personally responsible for someone else's bad time.


On our way to Starbucks, Kate and I both confessed that we aren't sure if we'll be able to continue to attend meditation if these are our fellow meditators. I'd had a fantastic, wonderful, exceptionally happy day (the details of which I intend to feature in a future blog), and this experience, ironically, was by far the worst part of my day. That is not ok.


At Starbucks we encountered the last of our crazy cast of characters: the barista we have dubbed "Rin," after a very strange former student of mine whom this woman resembles both in behavior and, to an extent, appearance. We should have known right away that this woman would end up being a wackadoo, as on our first encounter with her back in November, when Kate was trying to buy some crackers, she remarked, "Oh. I'm sorry, but I can't sell you these." (There was no sku.) "Rin," we have discovered, is rather judgmental for a barista, once having the following exchange with Kate--who had ordered herself a beverage and then also picked up a pack of cookies for herself and a chocolate chip cookie for her husband-- "Will you be getting another drink?" When Kate said no, "Rin" replied, "Ok, then. So one drink and the cookies and cakes..." trailing off as though Kate was being a pig about it and not buying it for someone else! (Not that it should matter either way.) This woman also makes random strange remarks that have since become euphamisms for Kate and I.


Scene: Kate digging out her wallet to pay, and remarking to me that her bag is so big. "Rin" jumps in and says, "Oh! I have a big bag, too! I like to keep all sorts of things in there, like my diskettes--" At this point, Kate and I had to specifically AVOID making eye contact so as to not laugh our asses off at each other in front of the woman. As we left the store, we said, practically in unison, "I'm sorry... DISKETTES??? Who has diskettes anymore?!" We had a hearty laugh over the lady's strangeness, and then had another hearty laugh over the fact that we'd had to avoid each other's gaze because it would have caused us to erupt in laughter. Since that night, we will use the term "diskette" to indicate something ridiculous that we can't discuss at present lest we lose it.


So anyway, in sum, our Friday night meditation dates may soon be coming to an end because annoying people are ruining our relaxation potential.


On the bright side, for Kate at least (who this week purchased a "Sounds of India" CD at Starbucks), "Rin" has offered to go see Bollywood films with her. (Seriously.) So perhaps Kate and "Rin" will soon be enjoying their own "weekend hug."





Ommmmm!

Posted by Natalie M at 8:41 PM 3 comments 

Labels: meditation, weird people

I Want No Parts of This

Monday, March 15, 2010

I Want No Parts of This

I sit here in a place I've been several times before. This time, though, feels a little different because I'm not inclined to do this dance again. I'm getting more and more disinclined to fill this role, and keep trying to come up with alternatives to doing what is expected of me. My normal work ethic which makes it impossible for me to give less than my best is fading away as I find myself more and more attempting to take short cuts to save myself time and effort; nobody but me will notice or care anyway, and I'm already disgusted with the situation.


The immediate issue is that it's again paper time. However, paper time is shedding light anew on everything that's wrong with education today, mostly in student effort and responsibility (or lack thereof).


I framed this paper--a literary analysis of short stories we read and dissected in class--with a big lesson on "How to Write a Literary Analysis Paper." We spent upwards of an hour or so picking apart each and every aspect of the lit analysis paper--from the introduction, to thesis statements, to topic sentences, transitions, textual evidence with analysis, and concluding sentences, to conclusions and everything in between. After we looked at each part alone, we examined a well-written lit analysis paper which I'd color-coded to show each of the parts we'd discussed. Students had a chance to ask questions and have access to the document and sample paper online. We spent another 30 minutes looking at how to cite quotes in the body of a paper. We spent another 15 minutes reviewing the proper setup for the outlines (which I'd projected onto the front screen for them to copy down a full week in advance).


The first due date was last Wednesday's thesis statement. In short, they blew. So Wednesday afternoon I skipped the gym and stayed at school super late finding good resources for teaching them how to write a thesis statement, and creating a lesson to re-teach the concept. On Thursday, I essentially talked to myself for 30 minutes of each class while explaining this concept and reviewing the resource I'd created to help them. At the end of that exercise, I asked them to use the resource and the sample thesis statements (which were examples of statements that needed work, but which had detailed advice on how to fix them) to find the issues in their own statements and revise accordingly. When I conferenced with them, I found that many of them didn't bother even attempting to revise their statements, instead coming to the "conference" expecting me to tell them exactly what the problem was and how to fix it (and, all the better, to write it for them if I was willing. I wasn't.) Student after student came to my desk and sat down with no questions prepared, but expected me to take ownership of their work. The one boy got quite annoyed with my turning my questioning to a, "What were you planning to discuss in this paper?" approach. He started rolling his eyes and remarked, "Whatever. I'll just ask my mom to look at it this weekend." I got annoyed with him in return and asked with 'tude, "What is the problem you're having with the question? What are you planning to write about in the paper? If you don't know what topics you plan to cover, how are you going to write your thesis statement?" I did my best to make time to meet with each student about the direction of his or her paper and thesis, but some students I didn't get to sit with; I did, however, bring the "revised" statements home with me to offer each one written feedback, even if it didn't accompany a sit-down.


Today was the second deadline: the outlines. I required that the outlines be typed, in full sentences, and contain thesis statement, topic sentences, textual evidence properly cited, and analysis for each of the 6 quotes. It goes without saying that these are to be printed prior to coming to class. Upon arriving to class, however, I found 2 emails expecting me to print work and 2 students who needed to go to the library to print. A handful of students also remarked in surprise, "We had to type it?" and some came to me saying, "I didn't know what form you wanted the outline in, so...." (insert lame explanation of idiotic, non-direction-following way they did it instead of A. Following the directions I gave them last week, or B. Calling one or both of thier study buddies to inquire after my expectations.)


My intention is to read and comment on all 71 of these efforts by Wednedsday so I can return them to students for growing it into their rough drafts, due Monday. As it were, in sitting down with them tonight, my rage grows in the pit of my stomach because they are, again, so poorly done. Granted, I've only reviewed 6 of them, but of those 6, only two students have the correct number of textual evidence pieces; the rest have 3 of 6. To me, those are some bad odds. There's also a distinct lack of analysis taking place which, for a lit analysis paper, is a big problem. Basically, the outlines do not portend quality final papers. They portend shit.

It is this realization that pushes me over the brink of care. Why is it, I wonder to myself, that the paper-writing process has to be this way? Why is it that I--a person who knows quite well how to craft a well-written essay in a variety of genres--am the one doing most of the work with the paper-writing process? I'm the one who is pointing out the problems with the thesis statements when it is they who should be able to identify the problems since I taught them what to look for. I'm the one who is asking them how they plan to organize their papers when it is they who should be aware of their intentions and plan their papers accordingly. I'm the one doing all the hard work while they sit on their asses and do as little thinking and planning and executing as possible. I guarantee that more than half of them haven't even bothered to re-read the story they're writing about beyond the one read we did together in class 3 weeks ago. (It became quite clear during the thesis statement experience that a good percentage of them also didn't understand the prompt topic, either, such that they didn't even know what they should be discussing in their paper. I ask you: isn't this a problem??)


I don't mind helping students through a difficult, confusing process with which they're unfamiliar and/or uncomfortable navigating. What I do mind is the lack of responsibility and accountability that I'm forced to deal with day after day. They don't even botherformulating specific questions to ask in a conference. They pretend they've never seen this stuff before (even though they've written at least 4 lit analysis papers before they get to me in 11th grade). They act like they can't do it. They behave as though I'm asking them to take on the impossible. I'm not saying it's a cake-walk, but having it framed and explained and taught as I've done, there's really no excuse for this level of poor results. I have to review 71 outlines by Wednesday, but about 60 kids can't be bothered to have fully completed 1 outline. There's something wrong there. What's worse is that, despite all of my lessons and feedback and conferencing and suggestions, the final papers will have shown almost no improvement. How do I know this? Because they almost never do. They don't take the suggestions because that would require them to revise; they hate to revise. Revision, after all, is a form of work. They don't "do" work. I'm the only one who does that.


And so the cycle continues. I teach and teach and teach, but no learning seems to happen. I work my ass off to help them achieve success, but the only one learning how to write a better paper is me. Like I said, I'm tired of the dance.


I just want to sit this one out.

I'm pretty sure no one would even notice.

Posted by Natalie M at 8:07 PM 2 comments 

Labels: bad students