How You Know I’m an English Teacher

I have a collection of yellow, number 2 pencils on my bathroom counter.

This is not because I do my best writing in the necessary room.

No, it’s because during the school day I use a pencil to pin my hair up and I forget to take it out until I’m washing my face at night.

Yep, I’m that teacher.

At least I don’t wear tiered, denim skirts or sweaters themed for every minor holiday.

Disconnect

I think I’ve officially lost touch with being a teenager.

I no longer understand or remember how it feels to think that your every thought is some sort of unique little butterfly. I don’t remember believing that my very emotion was new human territory.

And yet strangely, I do still remember exactly what it feels like to think you’re always right…

Things I Didn’t Know…And Still Don’t

This semester I am teaching a class on something I know absolutely nothing about: Journalism. 

Leads, libel, interviews, and attribution…these are words heretofore unknown to The Me.

And so how does one teach something they know nothing about? 

I believe the common expression is – bullshitting.

Though I suppose I’m not being entirely fair to myself. Let’s call it cramming, instead. 

Or perhaps it’s a little of both.

Not even one week into the semester, I’ve been asked at least fifty questions by these kids that I have no idea to answer. That’s where the bullshitting comes in. Example:

Q: Can I be sued if we write something about cheating in the school? There are so many cheaters!

A: Lying is bad. Don’t lie and no one will sue you. 

I didn’t say it was good bullshitting. (The first part is true. Sort of. And the last part is sort of like truth if the world were perfect.)

And then there’s the cramming. In two days, I have read not one, not two, not three, but eight chapters of the Journalism textbook. Why, you ask, would I submit myself to reading so dry you actually need a glass a water to accompany it for fear of death by dehydration? Well, I am literally learning something about journalism and then teaching it to the kids the next day. As long as they don’t open the textbook (and let’s face it, they won’t) I sound like a veritable maven of journalistic knowledge. Er, I think. 

So, yeah, we’ll see how it goes. 

Stay tuned for stories of this particular set of teaching shenanigans. 

And in the meantime, I’ll strangle anyone who continues to offer advise in the form of “well all journalism really is is writing. If you can teach them to write, then you’re fine.” NO. ALL LIES. For god’s sake, in journalism, you put the title of a book in quotes. Quotes I tell you! The horror! It.is.not.the.same. The end. 

 

Tuesday’s Teacher Wins

1. Got my first teacher gift! I asked the student while unwrapping it if it was a severed hand, luckily it was not. A very sweet way to start the day( …severed-handfree.)
2. Today, I made kids like poetry. Not just poetry, British poetry. Not just British poetry, 17th century Metaphysical poetry. Response after poem’s discussion: “Miss, I’m going to frame this poem!”
3. After completing Of Mice and Men in a standard 11th class today, the children spontaneously started their own discussion on character analysis. Were the characters round enough to be worthy of the reader’s time and efforts? (Obviously the answer is yes, but they came to that all by themselves…well most of them.)
4. In the past week I have received no fewer that five emails from a student from last semester discussing the plot and character nuances of Game of Thrones as she reads it for the first time. When I told her she was going to hell for liking a certain evil character, she responded that she would see me there. Fair enough, kid, fair enough. 
5. Today I told a kid who wouldn’t stop making fun of what I was teaching that he needed to shut his mouth while I laid down the knowledge on or near his general area of abounding ignorance. No really, I used those words. And so it was done. This is the kid who at the end told me he was going to frame the poem. Both knowledge and smack were delivered on this day.

The Funk

I have been in quite the funk lately. I’m even having trouble sleeping now…which I never thought would happen as long as I was teacher and with those little (and not so little) energy suckers all day. But, alas, here we are.

Just now I got home from yet another 10 hour day. I went grocery shopping on my way home and when I came upstairs I laid all the groceries in the kitchen floor, proceeded straight to my bedroom and took some Advil PM. It is currently 7:34pm. I know that I will need time to let the Advil do its work and after a particularly hard week, I’d like to ensure that I actually get a decent night’s sleep tonight…for the first time all week.

As I was taking the Advil, I happen to see a picture of myself circa age four. I have this picture of Little Me on my bulletin board above my vanity. I’m wearing cerulean  blue overalls with a hot pink tank top underneath, strawberry hair in its childhood staple ponytail and one finger in my mouth (yet still my preferred pose of contemplation.) Next to me is my great grandmother. She is bent over a book and I am listening to her raptly. I love this picture for many reasons: even at a young age I am so quintessentially myself as I know me to be now, my great grandmother who has since passed is in it doing one of the few things that I remember her doing with me constantly – reading, and the romantic part of my brain enjoys how I, future English teacher, am so intensely engrossed by the written word.

However, as I glanced at it just now with the pills in my hand, I couldn’t help but think about poor, sweet, innocent Little Me. And in my head I told Little Me to enjoy. Enjoy the simplicity of no worries because it won’t be long before you’re taking Advil PM at 7:30 on a Thursday night just so you can shut off your absolutely incessant brain filled with worries and grumblings.

And there we have it! Funk understood! I’ve tried to call it a few different things now. I thought it started with Texas Rangers mourning (whimper)…and then I proceeded to a few other possibilities like loneliness and/or the stress of my job…

But I think what this is all about is that I’m letting my worries and my anxiety eat my face. Please, worries and anxieties, stop eating my face. It’s a rather good part of me and I’d like to keep it.

I’ve been utilizing all of my usual coping strategies but to no avail lately. And so I lie in bed at night consumed by stupidness. And I’m showering and I’m worrying about more stupidness. I’m driving to school and what am I doing? Worrying about stupidness. I am a pile of Worry Goo. Overalled Little Me and Great Grandmother would certainly not approve!

And Worry Goo is so amorphous! So indeterminable!  I’m a much better me in solid form with confirmable edges and full face in tact. Everyone knows.

Who stole my peace of mind? Won’t you give it back now please?

Pretend Grown Up

Today I was called out of class to discuss some sort of things with names like “cafeteria plans” and “cancer insurance” with some man in a suit that I have never met.

When he finished his short rundown on disability insurance and extra life insurance, he regarded my wide-eyed, confused face full of ignorance and what-the-crap, and concluded:

“You’re young, you’re healthy. You should blow your money on beers and good times. Sign this form and then you can go back to class.”

In reply, I blinked three times, made a wise crack designed to veil my over abundance of stupidity in mildly inappropriate humor, and signed the form.

It would appear that the jig is up! I am a pretend Grown Up and apparently my faking it skills leave a little something to be desired…

Perhaps I should get a Serious Haircut. Or tops that don’t show cleavage.

(Who likes that my concern is for my faking it skills and not for developing real adulthood skills? Ehh?)

Watch as the English Teacher Rambles on about Books!

My goodness it’s been a while since I’ve written.

I find that I’m just sort of wandering around in some placid state of contented and effortless happiness. Which, while splendid for me, does not make for very interesting blog fodder…and so I have remained silent.

But I shall endeavor on anyhow…

In today’s random post I will talk about what is currently on the forefront of my mind:

Reading a really good book.

So I went to McKay’s today. (Which is perhaps my all-time favorite place to be on a Saturday afternoon.) And I wandered about with a friend (Hi Andy!) and bought delightful books as I tend to do. Except this time, I bought ME books, not teacher books. not a single teacher book to be found in the bunch. No Steinbeck. No Fitzgerald. No Shakespeare. No canonical literature and not even any YA. Grown-up books for the me that is me when I am being the me in the place of me. Ah, yes.

And so, upon my return home I started Audrey Niffinegger’s 2009 release, Her Fearful Symmetry.  I have read several really good books this year. Books that different parts of the me-me and the teacher-me greatly enjoy. But today I sat down and read the entire first half of this in one sitting. And that is not something I can often do to be perfectly honest.

Excuse me while I rave somewhat incoherently:

I felt like this while reading her earlier book, The Time Traveler’s Wife, but I thought it had to do with the plot being set partially in South Haven, MI (my family’s hometown and the author’s.) But in reading this new book which takes place in London, I can see that it’s more than that. There’s something about her writing that makes me feel like I am personally connected to the author. Yes, I’m engaged by the characters and the story…And within ten pages I find that I relinquish control and fully give in to the idea of going on the journey of the novel. Sure. All those good things. But it’s more than that. I find that every couple of chapters I look at her picture on the back of the book and wonder if in some other place and time we are somehow connected. If perhaps she knows me somehow. I wonder if supernaturally this book only exists for me and that when other people read it, it says something else entirely. It’s not even that the story feels particularly like it’s about me either. (I’ve had that experience when a book or a movie reminds you all too much of real life…this book is assuredly nothing like my real life.)

I recognize that I sound like a crazy person. (And I am quite sleepy for sure.) But, this is the second time around with this author and the level of intimacy that she creates in the book simply transcends all other reading experiences I’ve ever had. I could swear that she’s writing it just for me.  Not in way that feels that she’s writing to illustrate some greater life lesson I need to know, but as if she knows exactly what I, the me-me, need to feel truly connected and engaged by any story or character…and as if she knows me personally. It’s really something altogether unprecedented and quite unreal.

And so I guess I’m left to wonder…does anyone else have this experience with her books? Or, does anyone else have this experience with any other author?

Also, should I seek help?  Or perhaps just more sleep?