I've taken a bit of flak from people about the things I have posted here on my blog in regards to my son, vis a vis his mental faculties. Whenever I joke about my concerns about Arthur's slower development rate when compared to his sister (especially regarding reading,) people warn me that one day he will read these things and his feelings will be hurt.
I say that hurt feelings are a small price to pay to get to the day when he actually can read my comments.
Look, I know he has to develop at his own speed, and he has shown progress of late. But I'm just impatient. I joke about being afraid that he is just a dim kid, but the only reason I'm comfortable making such jokes is that I know he isn't. If you spend time with Arthur, you will quickly see that he is quite sharp, and his mental acuity has never been called into question.
My son is no dummy, and grasps concepts quickly. When he really wants to learn something, he picks it up easily, but he's stubborn (pretty sure he gets that from his mother.) He fights us tooth and nail when we try to teach him to read, and resists all our attempts to help him. He's fine with letters, and has an ever-expanding collection of sight words, but he doesn't want to put in the effort to sound things out, and prefers to have people just tell him what the words are because he's lazy (again, has to be from his mom.)
And it's frustrating. I so badly want to share the joy and wonder of reading with him, and I know he will love being able to read for himself. He's got this big old brain that is constantly working, but whenever we sit down to do reading practice, he sits there with a goofy grin and intentionally fools around and get things wrong to get a reaction (definitely from his mom.)
Of course all of this is normal. As someone who grew up hearing parents and teachers go on about blah blah potential, blah blah blah effort, blah blah blah wasting opportunities, blah blah blah no future, I truly get that you have to give kids their own time to do what they are going to do.
I know this.
Buuuuut...
I want it now. I want him to live up to what he can do now. I don't want to wait, I want time to move according to my schedule.
But being a parent is largely defined by being subject to the whims of time. When you have children, time is always moving at the wrong speed for what is going on. Everyone talks about how fast time goes by, saying 'if you blink, you'll miss it!' And sure, when you look back, time can fly away from you in rush of hazy memories, but while you are actually experiencing it, time can absolutely crawl.
Anyone who has ever had to potty-train a child understands this phenomenon. What seems like such a natural, obvious process; "don't shit there, shit here!" and should be a brief transition period of a few weeks of work, drags on and on for what feels like an ice age. And then come the inevitable relapses that bring on a sense of futility (in addition to extra laundry.) If you want to experience eternity, try potty training for a week and then loop that experience.
It's like that with tons of skills that kids have to learn. You know they are smart enough to get it, but their little brains sometimes need far more instruction and repetition than it seems should be necessary. And you can't rush them, you just have to be patient and move at their speed. But boy, will you wish you could fast forward through a lot of those times.
Even after they pick up how to do something, many kids will do their very best to make time dilate into infinity by performing tasks with all the headlong rush of a glacier climbing a staircase.
After an epoch of teaching our daughter how to tie shoes, she is now a total pro. And if she's putting on her shoes to go play outside she's like a freaking Nascar pit crew. But what's that? Mommy and Daddy are running late and we need to get out the door quickly? Cue up the oboes and bassoon on the soundtrack, because suddenly tying her shoes has become like a session low-impact tai chi in an osteoporosis ward, and her fingers can't move through the kata slowly and methodically enough.
98% of my son's actions throughout the waking day involve running with the speed and intensity of focus of a cheetah who's just seen a gazelle trip. But once he determines that his parents have any actual destination and timetable, he goes from hare to tortoise fast enough to need anti-lock brakes. Suddenly every rock, leaf or cloud is endlessly fascinating, and demands careful scrutiny that would do Natty Bumpo proud.
At dinner, when I set down his plate, he gulps his food down like the Sarlacc, so that I barely have a moment to take a bite of my own dinner before he's demanding seconds. But mornings? When we have to get going? Well now each food must be chewed thoroughly according to the National Institute of Health guidelines. Suddenly he must pick through his food as if he's looking for Wonka's golden ticket. And I have never seen a boy who feels the need to put a cup of apple juice up to his lips and FAKE THAT HE IS DRINKING! I swear, it's like he's a teamster on golden time or something.
It seems that children universally lack any respect for the concept of finite time, and do everything as if they have all the time in the world. That is because for them, it basically is. For a four year old, time doesn't even register as scarce commodity. Their origin is a hazy mist of impressions and their future is an ever-changing whirlpool of possibility.
And that's all well and good for kids, but parents have things to do, places to go, and deadlines to meet. We have responsibilities and schedules and stress, and we just don't have the time for lollygagging, woolgathering, or any other such tomfoolery (today's word selection is brought to you by Old Crankypants Brand liniment tonic, now available in wintergreen!)
Parents need to get kids ready for school, get to work, pick up kids from school, get them fed, bathed, homeworked and pajama-ed so that they can get them to sleep early enough to do all the other crap they need to do. And if kids insist on moving at a snail's pace, this throws a monkey wrench into the orderly works of the daily grind.
Children don't realize how valuable time is, and so they need to learn to move, work, eat, and develop skills faster.
But then again, while time is a one-way street, it is also a double-edged sword.
It may take an eternity of long slow hours in the bathroom for a child to use the potty seat, but eternity gets a lot faster once they learn to drive. And you may find yourself regretting all those times you admonished your child to hurry up and eat once they are bolting down their dinner to hurry out the door to hang out with their friends. And that wearisome tugging on your child's hand in order to get them to keep up with you as you walk becomes a much heavier pulling on your heart when watching their back recede in the distance as they take off down the road to their own destiny, leaving you clutching nothing but hope and memories.
And for some parents...
Some parents must bear the burden of wanting every one of those wasted seconds back. Must sit helplessly by a hospital bed begging for more time, hoping for one more day for the treatment to take hold, one more hour together to say all that needs to be said, one more minute for them to open their eyes just to say goodbye.
For some parents, there is no such thing as wasted time.
So you know what Arthur? You take your own time learning to read. I'll wait as long as you need.
You take all the time in the world, buddy.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Friday, February 20, 2015
Destructive Criticism
I was actually doing pretty well. It was a beautiful cold day (in the 40's in the morning, a rare treat for South Florida,) I was early into school and got a good parking spot, I had all my photocopies ready to go, and everything seemed five by five.
I had told my Senior English classes that I would be giving them their big writing assignment today. I had been talking about it for the last two weeks or so, as we finished reading Hamlet. So they knew it was coming, and they were to pick up the packet describing the assignment as they completed their final tests. It was all so simple and organized.
And then Sharcayla happened.
That's not her real name of course, it's just the closest I can come to her actual name without being unprofessional. Perhaps I should take a moment to describe this individual before discussing the incident.
Sharcayla is one of those kids whose name is well known at school. Hers is a name that comes up in the planning room on a regular basis, especially at the beginning of the year, where you will hear someone say "you have THAT kid? Good luck!" She is the type of kid who usually has a different list of teachers at the end of the year than she had at the beginning, as guidance and administration often have to move her from class to class due to problems with other students or teachers. Her name popped up on the suspension lists with regularity in past years, usually for fighting. She is one of those girls I've discussed before, a girl who lives every moment of her life with her back in a corner, every interaction with people (especially adults,) is a confrontation, every relationship an adversarial one.
And her face. She has a permanent case of what can only be described as 'stank-face.' Seriously, at any given moment when she is in my classroom, her face is contorted in a look of abject disgust and effrontery as if someone had just shoved an offensive political tract made of dog shit and rotten cabbage right under her nose. She is perpetually repulsed and incensed at whatever is presented to her, be it a weekly vocabulary quiz or a hearty "good morning." As far as I can tell, her only other face is highly expressive rolling of her eyes and neck, meant to convey her utter contempt and dismissal of the source of her initial stank face reaction.
When I saw that I would be graced with Sharcayla's presence this year, I was assured that she had improved with age, and as a senior, was ready to put all her ratchetude behind her and graduate with her class. And true enough, she passed the first semester with...well she passed, and that is all that matters.
But every week, every class day, I give them work and get a double dose of the standard stank-face/eye roll combo, and I just have to shake my head and roll with it, because that's Sharcayla, and what are you going to do?
Today however I could not.
The big writing assignment (the approach of which, I remind you, had been presaged by portents and harbingers, in the form of me repeatedly fucking telling them,) has to do with Hamlet. Now, I have not taught Hamlet in over ten years, since it has been that long since I have taught honors level English, and Macbeth has been the prescribed Shakespearean play for regular Seniors in all those years (which I adore.)
But with our new textbook (vileness and hatred!) Hamlet is back on the menu. But that means I don't have any assignments on file that I like (I need to constantly update my stuff, and I can't abide using someone else's materials.) So I've been making all new quizzes and such, and I wanted to come up with a really good writing assignment, one that would challenge them, but was still something they could do. I sort of have to aim at the center of mass when it comes to ability level; these kids are not the best at self-motivation, and years of standardized test prep have mauled their sense of wonder and intellectual curiosity.
Nobody does literary research papers anymore. Most kids at some point or another will write a paper on some topic (why dress codes are bad!) and have to bring in some evidence from the internet (there is literally no other source for information than the internet. Accept that.) But I feel that there are some valuable skills involved with analyzing a work of fiction to provide evidence for a claim. But I can't expect my kids to be able to do an old fashioned research paper with citations, resources or literary criticisms and such. And yes, that does make me sad and demoralized to commit that to writing, and I'm going to need a minute to myself.
Okay, so I decided to do a literary research essay. I called it that because I couldn't bring myself to call it a research paper. It was very basic; I gave them a number of questions, such as "did Horatio actually help Hamlet in the long run?" which they could answer, thus forming a thesis statement. Then they had to give three (the magic number) reasons to support their thesis, and cite where in the story they obtained their evidence (act and scene, not even line numbers or anything.)
I thought this was a pretty straightforward assignment, and wrote exhaustive directions to explain it in as much detail as possible, so that even after I explained it in person, if they had questions outside of class, they could read the directions. There was a planning sheet attached to it, and a clear description of how grading would be assigned. The work was not too demanding, but still covered the all-important skill of drawing support from a work of fiction. I was actually rather proud of this assignment.
"This is bullshit!"
And with that, I utterly lost my composure. I had just started to go over the packet with them, and had gotten as far as "you will be writing a research essay..." when Sharcayla felt the need to make that comment. She didn't shout it; she simply said it in a conversational tone, accompanied by one of her finest shit-sniffing sneers.
And it was just too much for me. I mean, I should have just let her vulgar insult and dismissal of everything I value slide, because that is what a teacher is supposed to do today. I was supposed to abandon any trace of personal or professional pride whatsoever and just say to myself "boy, I need to work a lot harder to reach this student, who is just as valuable and capable as any of the other students!"
But what I instead thought was: "fuck this little bitch!" I know I am supposed to see these burgeoning adults as precious little snowflakes, but here was an eighteen-year-old pile of smug anger and self-assured entitlement taking a public dump over everything I was trying to do for her. And it was too much. I just wanted to slap the stank right off her face and tell her exactly what I thought of her and what she could do with her opinions on my assignment.
To quote Mike Birbiglia, "what I should have said was nothing." I did not scream or rant, but I could not restrain myself from raising my eyebrows and saying "I'm sorry Sharcayla, you feel that writing an essay in Senior English class is bullshit?"
This was a mistake. I knew it was a mistake before I said it, but my (genteel) berserker rage just took over. Because you can't engage a girl like Sharcayla. She has nothing to lose, and will never, CAN never back down. As soon as I bothered to try to talk to her, there was no other possible scenario, and she simply slipped into a well-worn groove.
She raised her voice and dialed her 'I don't give a shit' attitude to maximum. She just sat there with arms folded, her chin jutting out and her upper lip curled up like a Disney villain intoning "I don't care" to everything I said.
My fit passed quickly, the anger I felt at her outburst replaced by a crushing wave of sadness. Sadness at the futility of it all. Sadness that I had lost my temper, no matter how reservedly. And sadness that this was just the way it is, and the way it will continue to be.
Kids like Sharcayla are a fact of life. Much could be said about the many factors that produce such an individual, and scaffolds could be erected for the nature vs nurture debates that could arise from such a discussion, but none of that matters in the least.
The bottom line is that there is a person in my class who has an epic-level case of lousy attitude, and I'm not going to fix that. Officially, no child is supposed to be left behind. But you try teaching high school.
You're not only going to find that some kids aren't just left behind, but they intentionally run backwards. And some of them?
You're going to want to back the bus over them.
Sigh. I know this all seems terribly maudlin of me (and perhaps more than a touch "somebody call the authorities" troubling,) but it's just part of the job. No matter where you work, I'm sure you have encountered customers or coworkers that inspire thoughts that would make Mister Rogers very disappointed with you, but you learn to deal with them.
And that's what I am doing, too. It is a constant, ongoing struggle to be better and better, and to smile when I want to scream, just like anyone else. I have to focus on the kids that are actually here to learn, and who do not feel the need to challenge everything you do.
But teenagers, man.
Fuck that kid.
**Edit**
I wrote this post last night, but did not post it then. So I am sitting in my classroom during planning this morning, and as I was about to hit the "post" button, another kid from that same class yesterday stopped by my room. This is another student who is famous for having a lousy attitude, and who is in my class because I agreed to take her from a colleague who was convinced that she would be forced to murder this child if she remained in her class.
This student stopped in my class and said, "Mr. Crumpler, there was something I meant to say to you. I felt so bad yesterday when Sharcayla said she thought your assignment was bullshit. I mean, who says that?"
So there you go. There are still kids who hold to some basic elements of decorum and decency, and it is they that I need to focus on. And I think this is a better ending to this tale.
Still pissed though.
I had told my Senior English classes that I would be giving them their big writing assignment today. I had been talking about it for the last two weeks or so, as we finished reading Hamlet. So they knew it was coming, and they were to pick up the packet describing the assignment as they completed their final tests. It was all so simple and organized.
And then Sharcayla happened.
That's not her real name of course, it's just the closest I can come to her actual name without being unprofessional. Perhaps I should take a moment to describe this individual before discussing the incident.
Sharcayla is one of those kids whose name is well known at school. Hers is a name that comes up in the planning room on a regular basis, especially at the beginning of the year, where you will hear someone say "you have THAT kid? Good luck!" She is the type of kid who usually has a different list of teachers at the end of the year than she had at the beginning, as guidance and administration often have to move her from class to class due to problems with other students or teachers. Her name popped up on the suspension lists with regularity in past years, usually for fighting. She is one of those girls I've discussed before, a girl who lives every moment of her life with her back in a corner, every interaction with people (especially adults,) is a confrontation, every relationship an adversarial one.
And her face. She has a permanent case of what can only be described as 'stank-face.' Seriously, at any given moment when she is in my classroom, her face is contorted in a look of abject disgust and effrontery as if someone had just shoved an offensive political tract made of dog shit and rotten cabbage right under her nose. She is perpetually repulsed and incensed at whatever is presented to her, be it a weekly vocabulary quiz or a hearty "good morning." As far as I can tell, her only other face is highly expressive rolling of her eyes and neck, meant to convey her utter contempt and dismissal of the source of her initial stank face reaction.
When I saw that I would be graced with Sharcayla's presence this year, I was assured that she had improved with age, and as a senior, was ready to put all her ratchetude behind her and graduate with her class. And true enough, she passed the first semester with...well she passed, and that is all that matters.
But every week, every class day, I give them work and get a double dose of the standard stank-face/eye roll combo, and I just have to shake my head and roll with it, because that's Sharcayla, and what are you going to do?
Today however I could not.
The big writing assignment (the approach of which, I remind you, had been presaged by portents and harbingers, in the form of me repeatedly fucking telling them,) has to do with Hamlet. Now, I have not taught Hamlet in over ten years, since it has been that long since I have taught honors level English, and Macbeth has been the prescribed Shakespearean play for regular Seniors in all those years (which I adore.)
But with our new textbook (vileness and hatred!) Hamlet is back on the menu. But that means I don't have any assignments on file that I like (I need to constantly update my stuff, and I can't abide using someone else's materials.) So I've been making all new quizzes and such, and I wanted to come up with a really good writing assignment, one that would challenge them, but was still something they could do. I sort of have to aim at the center of mass when it comes to ability level; these kids are not the best at self-motivation, and years of standardized test prep have mauled their sense of wonder and intellectual curiosity.
Nobody does literary research papers anymore. Most kids at some point or another will write a paper on some topic (why dress codes are bad!) and have to bring in some evidence from the internet (there is literally no other source for information than the internet. Accept that.) But I feel that there are some valuable skills involved with analyzing a work of fiction to provide evidence for a claim. But I can't expect my kids to be able to do an old fashioned research paper with citations, resources or literary criticisms and such. And yes, that does make me sad and demoralized to commit that to writing, and I'm going to need a minute to myself.
Okay, so I decided to do a literary research essay. I called it that because I couldn't bring myself to call it a research paper. It was very basic; I gave them a number of questions, such as "did Horatio actually help Hamlet in the long run?" which they could answer, thus forming a thesis statement. Then they had to give three (the magic number) reasons to support their thesis, and cite where in the story they obtained their evidence (act and scene, not even line numbers or anything.)
I thought this was a pretty straightforward assignment, and wrote exhaustive directions to explain it in as much detail as possible, so that even after I explained it in person, if they had questions outside of class, they could read the directions. There was a planning sheet attached to it, and a clear description of how grading would be assigned. The work was not too demanding, but still covered the all-important skill of drawing support from a work of fiction. I was actually rather proud of this assignment.
"This is bullshit!"
And with that, I utterly lost my composure. I had just started to go over the packet with them, and had gotten as far as "you will be writing a research essay..." when Sharcayla felt the need to make that comment. She didn't shout it; she simply said it in a conversational tone, accompanied by one of her finest shit-sniffing sneers.
And it was just too much for me. I mean, I should have just let her vulgar insult and dismissal of everything I value slide, because that is what a teacher is supposed to do today. I was supposed to abandon any trace of personal or professional pride whatsoever and just say to myself "boy, I need to work a lot harder to reach this student, who is just as valuable and capable as any of the other students!"
But what I instead thought was: "fuck this little bitch!" I know I am supposed to see these burgeoning adults as precious little snowflakes, but here was an eighteen-year-old pile of smug anger and self-assured entitlement taking a public dump over everything I was trying to do for her. And it was too much. I just wanted to slap the stank right off her face and tell her exactly what I thought of her and what she could do with her opinions on my assignment.
To quote Mike Birbiglia, "what I should have said was nothing." I did not scream or rant, but I could not restrain myself from raising my eyebrows and saying "I'm sorry Sharcayla, you feel that writing an essay in Senior English class is bullshit?"
This was a mistake. I knew it was a mistake before I said it, but my (genteel) berserker rage just took over. Because you can't engage a girl like Sharcayla. She has nothing to lose, and will never, CAN never back down. As soon as I bothered to try to talk to her, there was no other possible scenario, and she simply slipped into a well-worn groove.
She raised her voice and dialed her 'I don't give a shit' attitude to maximum. She just sat there with arms folded, her chin jutting out and her upper lip curled up like a Disney villain intoning "I don't care" to everything I said.
My fit passed quickly, the anger I felt at her outburst replaced by a crushing wave of sadness. Sadness at the futility of it all. Sadness that I had lost my temper, no matter how reservedly. And sadness that this was just the way it is, and the way it will continue to be.
Kids like Sharcayla are a fact of life. Much could be said about the many factors that produce such an individual, and scaffolds could be erected for the nature vs nurture debates that could arise from such a discussion, but none of that matters in the least.
The bottom line is that there is a person in my class who has an epic-level case of lousy attitude, and I'm not going to fix that. Officially, no child is supposed to be left behind. But you try teaching high school.
You're not only going to find that some kids aren't just left behind, but they intentionally run backwards. And some of them?
You're going to want to back the bus over them.
Sigh. I know this all seems terribly maudlin of me (and perhaps more than a touch "somebody call the authorities" troubling,) but it's just part of the job. No matter where you work, I'm sure you have encountered customers or coworkers that inspire thoughts that would make Mister Rogers very disappointed with you, but you learn to deal with them.
And that's what I am doing, too. It is a constant, ongoing struggle to be better and better, and to smile when I want to scream, just like anyone else. I have to focus on the kids that are actually here to learn, and who do not feel the need to challenge everything you do.
But teenagers, man.
Fuck that kid.
**Edit**
I wrote this post last night, but did not post it then. So I am sitting in my classroom during planning this morning, and as I was about to hit the "post" button, another kid from that same class yesterday stopped by my room. This is another student who is famous for having a lousy attitude, and who is in my class because I agreed to take her from a colleague who was convinced that she would be forced to murder this child if she remained in her class.
This student stopped in my class and said, "Mr. Crumpler, there was something I meant to say to you. I felt so bad yesterday when Sharcayla said she thought your assignment was bullshit. I mean, who says that?"
So there you go. There are still kids who hold to some basic elements of decorum and decency, and it is they that I need to focus on. And I think this is a better ending to this tale.
Still pissed though.
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