Real Life Conversations at School: No Privileges

First, the backstory: In my school, if you misbehave or earn a grade below a C- in any class, you lose your privileges. This means that you cannot go out to lunch or sign out of study halls. Your name is on a list and the entire faculty has a copy of it.

So I'm teaching U.S. History on Friday and we've been talking about the Cold War and nuclear weapons. A student in the class asks which countries have nuclear weapons. I began to identify the countries with nucs and the following conversation unfolds

T: Does Germany have nuclear weapons?

Me: Well no.

T: Why?

J-P: Because they lost their privileges.

Laughter ensues.

I love these kids.

Sunday Scribblings ---- Second Chance

Last night my son saw my ex, a woman whom he calls mommy. He loves her but she doesn't live with us anymore and so he misses her as well. He came back home after the visit and supper with her and her new girlfriend, and he told me that he wishes Mommy would just come home.

So I gently explained, as I have done on many occasions, that Mommy doesn't want to live in our home anymore. And I say that it wasn't his fault that she left and I remind him that she still loves him very much.

And I can tell that my answers and explanations fall short of the mark. But I don't know what else to do or to say. I feel our failure to make the relationship work most acutely at these moments, when I am trying to explain the unthinkable to the little boy who must live with it.

So if I had just one second chance, I'd make sure that his family stayed together. It seems like such a simple wish, but it isn't simple at all. And I fear that it will complicate my life --- and his --- forever.

Renaissance Woman, 21st century style

In the last 24 hours, I have:
- baked cookies
- packed the lunches
- made supper
- cleaned the kitchen (at least 3 times)
- burned 650 calories on the lovely eliptical trainer
- cut the grass
- planted some flowers and watered the garden
- washed 3 loads of laundry
- watched my son go off to supper with my ex......and wondered why she wears yellow and keeps getting the same dreadful haircut
- taught lessons on Charlemagne, the Cold War, and the American media and elections
- sat in on 3 student meetings
- read my happy book about Thrush Green
- tried on a skirt so large that it feel right off my hips (kudos to the eliptical)
- read my Newsweek and thought about presidential courage, leading me to read again the story of JFK and the Cuban Missile Crisis as told by Graham Allison
- graded some papers
- dreamt up this compelling blog entry

And still I am so behind. There are lessons to write, papers to grade, memos to polish, and the list goes on and on. I'm going camping for the weekend and I still need to pack for that trip.

But as behind as I am, it's a lovely evening and so I am taking a glass of iced tea outside to sit on the porch and smell the lilacs.

Listen Up

During the school day, from 8:15 until 3:05 pm, we don't permit our students to listen to headphones. The purpose is to ensure that we are connecting with one another during the day. No doubt a few of the students see this as a tiresome rule ----- some of them would rather listen to music. But the idea is to keep them plugged in to the school world and communicating with both their peers and the adults around them. I've always appreciated the policy and lately have come to appreciate it more.

Every morning as JT and I wait in traffic at the final jug handle turn, I see other cars filled with parents and their kids. Often the kids have little earphones in their ears. The parents and their children are together in their cars but separated into their own spheres by those tiny ear buds. I imagine lost conversations and connections between parents and kids, kids who still very much need their parents.

I enjoy my morning ride with JT. We practice his spelling words and visit about the day ahead. The drive home is the same routine ----- a review of our day and discussion of the evening before us. Should we water the garden? What's the homework load looking like? We laugh and share with one another. The time in between is filled with music that JT and I both like. Lately, as we talk and sing together I feel that we are building a bond that I hope will get us over the rough spots of adolescence and beyond.

This is a routine that I learned from my own mom. When she was driving my sister and I to school, we'd listen to the radio and talk. I still remember the day that she insisted that the Journey song was called "Velvet Arms" not "Open Arms" and how my sister and I laughed. I remember jokes and laughter and a forging a bond with one another. That's what I hope to do for my son. Someday, I'd like to wait for those cars at the traffic light each morning and collect the headphones from the families who have them. Talk with one another; laugh with one another, I'd say. Because this time will pass all too quickly.

Spring Planting

JT helped with the spring planting both last night and tonight. He's an enthusiastic work crew........though chatty. I imagine that this is exactly the kind of revenge my parent's would wish upon me.

I enjoy his enthusiasm for the project. And I imagine us admiring the products of our labors as the summer unfolds. It's a happy vision for our future and one more reason to look forward to the summer.

Front-Loaded

All year long, the teachers at my school have been noting that the AP tests start later this than usual this year. So, knowing that my test is always on the Wednesday of week 2, I've been thinking that I have nothing but time on my hands. Around February, as I adjusted my teaching schedule to account for the fact that the class was behind, I realized that my test date is now the 1st day.

That's today.

I was behind because this is the most inquisitive and thoughtful set of students I have ever taught in AP American Government. I've been teaching this subject for 15 years so it's a pretty terrific complement to this group. There are 14 students in the class and they have been amazing. I couldn't have asked for a better group, especially in a year when I needed the distraction of such a challenge. I always joke that I teach for my own entertainment, but that's not entirely true. However, if it were it true then this year's 2nd period class has more than fulfilled my expectations. They have never been content to simply know things. This class wants to know why and how. They're smart and confident and at the same time they are modest about their remarkable abilities. They hunger for their turn to rule the world.

And I know that in their hands, the world will be safe. I know this because they ran my world every day this year from 9:15 until 10 am. And for those 45 minutes each day, I was engaged and happy. You can't really ask for much more than that.

Carnival

Last week brought warm days in the 70s and nights that were still cool, though not really cold. It was lovely spring weather and the perfect time for a carnival.
After his usual Friday afternoon date with his reading tutor, JT and I headed over to the Middlesex Carnival. The plan was to score some supper and ride some rides as twilight swept over the newly green trees.

Years ago at the Fresno County Fair my sister and I rode the ferris wheel and were lucky enough to get an extra long ride. As JT and I took a spin Friday night, I heard his excited chatter in my ear and remembered that ride. I love ferris wheels and that feel of rising up to see the world at your feet and then coming back around for another turn.

We took our ride and then sought out a nutritionally balanced supper of french fries and zeppoles (there were no corn dogs ------ the only blemish on the evening). JT filled the nutritional gaps with some cotton candy.

It was a nice end to an exhausting week. As we walked back to the car, holding hands and planning the rest of our weekend, I thought about the life that I am building for JT, and the way that I can never hear enough of his laugh and his chatter. I thought about how complete his life makes my own, and how his love and faith in me sometimes take my breath away with their power. I thought about the circle of the ferris wheel, the way that it always comes around, the highs balancing the lows. I thought about where my life has gone in the last year and where I'd like it to head in the next year. And I thought again that I'd really like to be done grieving for the past.

All Hail the Pizza Rat

I met J and her son B when I first started work at my school. Our boys are the same age and have been in school together for 4 years. They met at a play date nearly 4 years ago and both boys still talk about that day. We went to a park and when there was a bit of a rainstorm we let the boys play in the mud, washing them off in an outdoor pump before we got in our cars to go home. This is the equivalent of 3 year old nirvana and even now, at the jaded age of 7, they talk about that day.

Yesterday, we went to the Pizza Rat together. J had revealed her secret Pizza Rat strategy last summer: go at 4 pm on a weekday and it's quiet. The boys can run around and play for a couple of hours while the grown ups can visit and relax. It's actually quite lovely. I took this picture of our boys when they stopped just long enough for a photo to be snapped. They have been friends for more than half of their lives and I love that idea. That, some good company, and the laughter of two happy boys made for a nice mid-week break.

Mayday

All over the nation yesterday, there were rallies on behalf of immigrants and immigrant rights. It's not nearly the level of attention that was paid to the issue last year on May 1st, but people are still talking. And what they are saying often bothers me. A lot.

Locally, the town of Morristown, New Jersey, has announced a plan to ask the federal government to authorize the town's police officers to arrest illegal aliens. A town of 20,000 with a train station that attracts day laborers, the town and now its mayor, have been outspoken opponents of illegal immigration. But the very idea of making people prove their citizenship to report a crime means that an already exploited underclass will face more problems, not less. Morristown will not get rid of its day laborer, but the town will attract an underclass confident that they can commit crimes with impunity. Nice.

The fact is that Morristown is not alone ----- many cities feel that that the federal government has dropped the ball on immigration. Strictly speaking, more than 10 years out from the last federal effort to deal with immigration, these towns aren't wrong. But the problems that they attribute to immigrants (crime, lower property values, and the so-called "costs" of immigration in terms of public services) are a form of barely veiled racism, with very little evidence to back up the claims. The facts demonstrate that in the United States illegal immigrants work the jobs no one else will take. In the form of rent and sales tax, they pay their fair share of the tax burden in the nation. Morristown is just another example of the white middle class looking to blame town troubles on the non-whites. It's shameful and it's wrong.

In the meantime, no one on the federal level is taking on this issue. So states and localities will continue to offer the sort of half-baked solution that Morristown has placed on the table. And thousand of people who work hard and only want to live the American dream will once again be excluded from the opportunities that the rest of us take for granted.

This is a problem in need of a solution. But no one seems to be listening.

Ex Marks the Spot

My ex and I had our monthly shouting match last night. It would seem she feels that I must tell my son ----- he's 7 ---- that I am partially to blame for our break up. According to her, when I cry or grieve about what happened to our family, I am acting "like a martyr" and making her the enemy. She offered up her usual mantra ---- "I left you, not him" ----- with her usual failure to understand the principle that when you are a little boy actions speak louder than words.

Then she told me that my friends are "sycophants" who only see things from my point of view. And all I can think is that she left with little warning. And when I asked her why we couldn't see a counselor and work things out her answer was that "it wouldn't work." I remember that she moved in with a new girlfriend the night that she walked out. I see her standing in front of my home, just minutes after she forced me to help her tell my son that our family was dissolved, waiting for her girlfriend to pick her up while I went back inside, now a single mama. That night I began to reconstruct the heart of a 6 year old and make the hurt manageable. Because I could never make it go away.

I'm not perfect and there is no doubt that I have made mistakes. My son sees that I am human. He certainly understands that things are hard for me since Lisa left. He knows that I am sometimes sad and sometimes angry. But I am trying and he knows that I will never leave. I can't figure out just how she expects me to incorporate her into the new life that she forced JT and I to construct. I think that when this happens to a family, there is no easy way to unwind the ties that once held us together, let alone re-build some kind of relationship.

And in the end, I just don't know what to do. I love my son and I wouldn't trade being his parent for an easy new life. Maybe I don't know how to share. Some days are easy; some are a struggle. But most days just are. And right now, that has to be enough.