Forget All That Teaching Career Talk!

Forget everything I said about longing for more time in the classroom. I've seen black bears in my yard on each of the last three days. On Wednesday, my eleven year old boy and his friend were playing in our woods and an adult came so close the boys felt they could have touched it. Wisely they chose to run to the house instead. So now I am dreaming of a career as a marksman (markswoman?)/ sharpshooter. It's very red state of me, I know, but that mama bear hasn't cornered the market on wanting to protect her cubs. SWAT team here I come. Don't tell them that I need a magnifying glass to read the account number on my credit card bill.

These Two Have A Lot in Common

So September 2009 was when I returned to teaching after a nine year absence. I landed a nice maternity leave replacement job, worked like the dickens, and all was right with the world. The teacher I replaced returned, I started subbing with a stack of resumes to mail out for a job for this September. Only now New Jersey public schools are facing crazy big budget cuts resulting in program cuts and layoffs galore. It's looking like this very enthusiastic English teacher with a massive hole in her resume might not be able to find a job for September. It is all pretty frustrating and demoralizing especially when I am also concerned about the cuts being made in my own children's schools. What I ought to do is ignore my troubles with some good escapist fiction: science fiction, chick-lit, English mysteries, but no, instead I am reading books about teaching that make me excited about the imaginary job I probably won't find for next year. Or worse, everything I read that is not about education specifically makes me think about education anyway or about how I would use that material in a classroom. I guess I just like salt in my wounds or a big fat pity party.

Here are two examples: I just read Doug Lemov's Teach Like a Champion after reading about him in the NYTimes earlier this year. Lemov works in charter schools and has observed many successful teachers working in inner city schools. He has come up with a taxonomy of 49 techniques he has seen these teachers employ to help their students achieve. Some of it is common sense. Some of it is a fresh new way of doing things. Some of it bucks trends in education. All of it interested me and made me wish I had a book like this when I was in school to become certified. If you know someone in a teacher education program right now, I highly recommend this book. It made me think about how I use time, my voice, and the physical space of my classroom. It will remain on my desk as a reference if I should be so fortunate as to have one.

I also recently finished Steve Martin's Born Standing Up and could not help but notice the ways stand up comedy is akin to high school teaching. Both deal with controlling the audience. Both require the person at the front of the room to be entertaining, quick thinking, and reflective. I love Steve Martin from The Jerk to his SNL and Muppet Show appearances to LA Story and his novella The Shopgirl. His cleverness and embrace of the absurd delight me so of course I enjoyed this book about the development and demise of his stand up career. He writes about the stand up act with great affection but also the knowledge that that is over for him. I am still so affectionate about teaching; I certainly hope I do not have to put it on hold due to the economy. So what can I read that won't put me in mind of it? Sports Illustrated? Nope. I have a hundred ways I could use that in an English classroom. Cookbooks? No again. They make me think of Frank Mc Court's Teacher Man. I may have to take up home improvement magazines or nudie ones as there doesn't seem a book out there I can completely escape into at present. So I'm off to get some copies of Playgirl and Popular Mechanics. Just kidding.

What and Why I'm Not Reading Right Now As Planned

For their birthdays back in January and February, my sons were given tickets to a professional hockey game. The game was for five pm today. The boys have been looking forward to it for months. It is the last regular season game for the NJ Devils and it is Fan Appreciation night which apparently means free hot dogs and soda. For my little Devils fan chowhounds it was shaping up to be a great night. My daughter and I had big plans of our own. She wanted us to go to Borders, spend a gift card that had been burning a hole in her pocket. Then she wanted us to come home and read our books on the couch while eating "a simple dinner like garlic toasts and carrots." She is my kind of girl; a little old lady that is. Oh, it was gong to be heaven.

Unfortunately, my seven year old woke up in the night with a stomach bug. After a lot of vomiting, he spent the rest of the day in bed in his pajamas. He, of course, could not go to the game, but was pretty brave about it, even generously offering his jersey to his sister to wear. She wore the jersey, a grim expression, and a book tucked under her arm. Rather than bookstore meandering and reading, I've made toast and Jello, played board games, watched Scooby Doo videos galore, and took a walk around the block with a cross between Alfalfa and Hugh Hefner as my boy insisted it was fine to walk around the neighborhood in his way too short pajama pants, no shirt, and bathrobe. I hope my daughter is enjoying her free hotdog and having at least as many laughs as the neighbors had when they got an eyeful of my walking companion.

What would I have read, you ask. Well, I'm in the middle of two autobiographies, Frank Bruni's Born Round and Tracy Morgan's I Am The New Black. Honestly, neither book is really thrilling me. I am, however, looking forward to The Irresistible Henry House which I plan to read the minute it is delivered via interlibrary loan.

Okay, it's back to Scooby Doo now.

In My Nest

In a radical break from tradition, the Easter Bunny did not deliver any books to any baskets in our house this year. Easter baskets past have had board books and chapter books, easy readers and cookbooks nestled beside chocolate bunnies and marshmallow chicks. Weird. I guess the Easter Bunny never got her act together enough to organize a trip to the bookstore. I, however, did give one book as an Easter gift to my adorable baby nephew. It was Susan Gillingham's adorable In My Nest which comes with the cutest little finger puppet bird and ends with that cute finger puppet bird in his nest with his parents. They put me in mind of a bird family version of my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. There are others in the series like In My Pond and In My Tree. They would make precious new baby or shower gifts.

In other Easter animal news, on Good Friday, my son who is in the first grade played at a friend's house. They were playing by the pond in the friend's yard, and reported that they found "a dead snake and a lizard that passed out" in the grass near the pond. How they could determine the difference between dead and passed out, I don't know, but I've been laughing about the description ever since.

The Best Possible Scenario

I know I have mentioned on this blog how much my kids (and I) love Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. It was with much glee and anticipation that we recently went to see the movie in the theater. It was funny and we laughed and elbowed each other at the good parts throughout. The best part for me, however, was as we walked out of the theater and the kids told me that although it was great, the book was better. I love when they like the book better!

Seven Things That Made Me Smile Today

1. It is 73 degrees and sunny outside.

2. I played charades with a group of high school juniors today. I played it with them during the last period of the day on the day before spring break. All that separated them from a sunny spring break was 50 minutes and me. Instead of being cranky, distracted, or too cool for school, they threw themselves into the game of charades with abandon, and we had a lot of laughs.

3. During library duty I squeezed in a few pages of Kate Atkinson's latest Jackson Brodie mystery, When Will There Be Good News?

4. This afternoon, my son who is in the first grade informed me that he "is moving on from Flat Stanley to The Boxcar Children."

5. I ate a few marshmallow Peeps.

6. Anticipating a new 30Rock. I'm hoping The Office is new tonight too. What the heck. If you're gonna dream, dream big.

7. Rolling down my window and belting out Jackson Five tunes in the car.

I hope you had much to smile about today.

It Comes in Like a Sufragette and Goes Out Like a Lamb

Earlier this week, my children were dong their homework. Big pat on the back to me because for once they were doing it at the kitchen table rather than in my car while I was driving to some sport or activity. One of the boys was working on spelling and the other was dealing with fractions. I tried to avoid eye contact with that one hoping he wouldn't call on me for help. That trick doesn't work any better now than it did back when I was in the fifth grade. My daughter did ask me for help with her homework. That should have alerted me to something strange afoot. She never asks for help. On that particular evening, however, she said she had to interview me. I figured I could answer a few questions while grilling cheese sandwiches and opening cans of soup. ( Don't judge!) After a few questions along the lines of, "When you were a girl, what career did you aspire to?" and "What is the most challenging thing about being a woman?", I had to ask what kind of homework this was. She informed that it was for Women's History Month. How did we get three weeks into Women's History Month without my realizing it I wondered and isn't it Black History month my son wondered aloud. Back to the interview questions. I had a problem with the one about what I find challenging about being a woman because I don't think my daughter's teacher really wants my honest response. Does she truly want my daughter to read aloud her homework to other fourth graders, telling them about her mother's issues with her period, approaching menopause, body image, and the high cost of bras? I didn't think so. So I lied or at least gave a wishy washy answer, but I didn't feel good about it.

Interesting to me, is the fact that I have read two great books this month about the challenges of being a woman. For my book club, I read Maggie O'Farrell's novel, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. It is set in Scotland and is the story of an elderly woman released from the mental hospital she was committed to as a teenager. She is released into the care of her grandniece who previously had no knowledge of the woman's existence. The plot held me in its grip from start to finish. I read about Maggie O'Farrell and her inspiration for writing this book, as the protagonist has been put in the mental institution on the flimsiest of causes. In one interview, the author cited other examples from history. It was sad and horrifying and an addictive read. I cannot wait to hear what the ladies in my book club have to say about it!

Speaking of the ladies in the book club, several of them also suggested Kate Walbert's novel, A Short History of Women. Mmm hmm; I was reading a novel with that title without realizing I was dead in the center of Women's History Month. Although I didn't enjoy this one as much as The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, it is quite good. It follows four generations of women in one family beginning with a suffragette who dies as a result of a hunger strike in England during World War I to her great granddaughters in the United States post 9/11.

So nobody can say I failed to provide a Women's History Month post. And for the fourth graders, I would much rather recommend a good book, such as The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate that I have written about on this blog, than to give them some half truths about the challenges I face as a woman.