Curses!

Sean was four and a half. Please be sure to include the “half”- it was important to him.

His brothers were much older than he, by almost seven years, and Sean heard them calling one another names – “You’re stupid! No, you’re stupid! Shutup! No you shutup!” And then usually, an impromptu wrestling match would follow. Most of the times, it was fun-wrestling, like he and his dad did, or the dogs did when they were being silly. Some of the times, it was mad-wrestling, when one or both of the big boys would end up in their in their rooms. But usually it was a lot of fun, because the big boys would smile breathlessly as they pounded on one another.

Sean had a small feeling that these words might be very powerful – they brought on the fighting! - but he hadn’t known quite how powerful they were until one day, when his mommy spilled his juice and he had laughed and called her stupid, just like James did to Mike. Surprisingly, his mommy had admonished him. So he thought he’d carry the jokes on and told her to shut up. Sean had been sure to smile when he had said those words to her, but mommy didn’t seem to smile back. And she did not want to wrestle.

Sean learned on that day those two words could cause a lot of trouble. Mommy had banished them from the house.  “Stupid” and “shutup” were not allowed in her house. By anyone. Ever again.

But those stubborn words would not disappear completely.  The big boys said them outside sometimes, and Sean heard them at preschool. And there were vague grumblings about the “forbidden s-word” from his dad. But Sean was confused – weren’t there two  s-words? Was it all just one? Which one was daddy talking about? Still Sean thought it best not to bring them up.  Despite the fact that they occasionally still swum around inside his brain, especially when he was feeling really silly, or maybe a little mad, but he most definitely wouldn’t let the s-words swim out of his mouth. He didn’t want to be banished from the house, like they had been.

But there was one day, Sean couldn’t help it.

He had woken up grumpy. One of the dogs had taken his slippers downstairs and his feet were cold on the bathroom floor. There were no waffles for breakfast – the big boys had finished them - and his favorite shirt was in the wash. Sean had also forgotten it was Tuesday. He thought he was going to be able to go to Abby’s house this morning, but instead he realized he had to go to preschool.

Preschool was fine, but it wasn’t as much fun as Abby’s house.

Things were just getting worse and worse.

He had been just sitting down to watch Blues’ Clues, when his mom reminded him to get his shoes, they were leaving in fifteen minutes. Sean’s brow had furrowed, he had just sat down.  And besides,  “I don’t want my shoes. I want my sneakers.”

His mom’s eyebrows had gone up, but she just said, “Oh-kay,” and helped him get his sneakers out of the coat closet and on his feet.

His mom had then said, “Sean, please go get your backpack.”

Sean had replied, “I don’t want to wear my backpack.”

His mom had explained, “You need it to bring your snack.”

Sean had countered, “I don’t want a snack.”

“Oh boy,” his mom had sighed. “Come on Sean, let’s get moving.”

“I don’t want to get moving.” He just wanted to sit on the couch. And finish his sippy. And watch Blues’ Clues and go to Abby’s and find his slippers and not have cold feet and eat his waffles.

His mother picked him up off the couch, he went stiff. “Sean, please cooperate.”

“I don’t want to cooperate!”

His mommy put the unusually stubborn little boy on her hip, and grabbed his backpack, her keys and her purse.  Her eyebrows were drawn down but not as far as Sean’s. Sean pulled them down even further, he was mad. Mad words wrestled around inside of his head.

She opened up the door to their silvery mini-van and put him down in his car seat. ‘Let’s buckle up.”

“I don’t want to buckle up.”

“Sean,” she said, attempting to soothe with her tone and placate him with the logic of the situation, “we have to drive to school, so for safety, you must buckle up.”

“I don’t want to have safety!” Sean yelled.

Clearly, there wasn’t much room for further discussion, Sean’s mother patiently pulled his stiff arms through the harness and clicked her frustrated son in to the seat. She glided his car door shut and sat herself in the driver’s seat, buckled in, turned her keys and slid the minivan down the long driveway. She saw her son’s upset face in the rearview mirror – his mouth set, his brows drawn very low over the bridge of his little red nose, his eyes shifting angrily first left, and then right.

Then Sean’s mommy heard him mutter under his breath the only words that he could think of to accurately portray his unrelenting frustration of this ridiculous mandatory preschool attendance, “I’m not going to that stupidshutup school.”

It was all she could do to keep from laughing right out loud.

Facebook Friends or Foes? A post from my SSU class blog.

Facebook Friends or Foes?

A family member and I been having an argument. Not a bad one, we haven’t yelled or screamed at one another about it, but we definitely have been dancing about the boundaries of polite conversation. Not dancing well either. And sadly, it is over something generally considered to be, and more truthfully, unimportant.

Facebook.

I do spend a bit of time on the site, however I will clearly state for the record that I am not an addict. (And no I do not protest too much.)  I do not ignore my family and friends for FB time, and I also prefer a nice lunch out together than an online chat session. Still, I am a notorious procrastinator, and will check on my FB before, during, and after my homework. But that would put FB on the same level as laundry and dishes  – a reason to step out of my brain for a second or two . I love Bejeweled Blitz and Words with Friends. And nothing has given me greater pleasure than posting photos of friends and family at a recent wedding.

But at the same time, I am not interested in having my profile and photos to go public; no one else needs to see pictures of my children running around in their bathing suits at camp from this summer. However, I will still readily admit that FB has enhanced my life in surprising ways.

I’m generally a private person. Although I am very, very comfortable in a classroom setting or in a writer’s chair, as a rule I have always been somewhat of weirdo. Not in the sick, creepy way, but I can be awkward, I often am not sure what to say, and I make strange jokes that not everyone finds funny. In person, without liquid fortification, I am often caught with my verbal pants down. Also, I unfortunately am a member of a peer group who is at a certain stage in life where they spend most of their free time carting around kids and/or elderly parents. It can be sometimes extremely difficult to connect with friends at all. I am in the middle of life and I will tell you, it’s a busy place.

To make matters worse, I am more of an idiot on the phone than in person. I want to know what you need and then I must get off the phone. I am not interested in carrying on a conversation while children are yelling and dogs are barking in the background. I do not have the phone filter required to maintain a chat in the midst of chaos and for that, my friends, I am sorry. To add to my social inadequacies, I have also been known not to answer an email or a text with any expedience. It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you  trust me – it’s not you, I swear, it’s me.

Luckily, I have a social savior, or more accurately, an ally in arranging easier social interactions. FB friend requests have put me back in touch with people I generally don’t get to see, people for whom I have saved a seat at my kitchen table, but I never quite forced myself to make an awkward phone call, “yeah, uh, hi, this is Sarah. Do you want to come over for pizza Friday night? Yes. Okay see you then. No, I don’t want to talk anymore. Bye.”

Status updates and uploaded photos keep me in touch with what is going on in their lives, so instead of spending those first few moments together before the wine is able to create that magical magnanimosity, you can ask about that Red Sox game they went to, or mention how big their three year old has gotten. And best of all, there is a modicum of control as to who and what you are interacting with,  I may hide someone, or unfriend them, if things get too strange, or their posts cause recall about why I stopped being in touch with them in the first place  - yes, I’m looking at you, Mr. KnowsWhoHeIs.

And most importantly, and more rewardingly, I have had multiple students who have contacted me through FB.

Many of these kids were from my LEHS days, some of these kids were from my days at Breed or waay back at Marshall Middle – all of them posting how they were doing in college or high school or work;  telling me how much they have missed me;  all of them eager to report their success. It has been wonderful to see how these children have grown up and I value that they consider me, not necessarily a friend, but perhaps an ally.  They have asked me for advice, they have messaged me with questions about reading or grammar issues or how to tackle a paper, because they see me as a resource and they know that I will point them in the right direction. Isn’t maintaining this mentor-mentee connection a goal of teaching? Aren’t those teachers for whom we felt that connection the reason many of us became teachers?

There are of course exceptions  - on both sides of the fence. There are students who have sent a friend request that I have messaged quite simply, “Do you really want me to read your status updates?” Most of them have understood that even in this forum I continue to be a mandated reporter and a responsible adult, I ignore the request and we move on with our lives. Not that I don’t worry about them. I’m just not stupid.

My family member thinks I may be stupid. He/she in fact sees FB as a danger, particularly in regards to teachers, citing the cases of teachers posting inappropriate status updates about their weekend drinking, or questionable photos of them in various states of undress. He/she worries about relationships with students crossing boundary lines. I get it. I do. In this day and age, teachers may perpetually be one wrong post from a sexual harassment lawsuit. I try to argue about levels of privacy and appropriateness, but I understand he/she has a valid point.

But, I say, If there is a medium where we know the kids are spending their time, why shouldn’t we be there? Shouldn’t we be a presence, even if it is a background one, in their lives? Shouldn’t we seek out ways to connect with our students in a place they feel comfortable? And please, please tell me, when did teachers lose their status as role models in the community and become creepy, or potentially criminal?

I know! I know. It’s a delicate issue.

I have been in contact with several of my teacher friends, not just in Lynn, but in other places. In the past few years, several school systems have made changes so that all teachers must post syllabi, long term goals, projects, schedules and daily assignments, allowing for greater transparency for parents and administrators. I have long been in favor of web presence and despite certain grumblings about changing their usual routines, the general teacher response was  mostly favorable. I have often noticed that most teachers are willing to explain and show what they are doing, what they hope to accomplish and what they have found out from their students.  And parents are most often eager to see what is happening on a daily basis with their kids. It was a great idea.

But unfortunately, no one is able to see it.

The most of the school systems have sites that are not easily accessible. The login process may be unintuitive and cumbersome, and it is difficult for parents and even some of the kids to navigate through the menus to find their classrooms. Simply putting up a website and having the teachers participate is not enough to create the desired transparency. Many teachers I know, who thought that the website would ultimately streamline their processes, are now in conjunction with the original grumblers, who are now correct in their naysaying, “It’s a waste of time.”

FB is friendly. FB is populated with most of the parents in the school system, maybe we wouldn’t necessarily want to see the parents’ status updates of weekend drinking or photos in various stages of undress, but we do know that it is a forum in which to reach them easily.

In David Friend’s literacy article on the Daily Nonpareil, First-graders use Facebook as a Learning Tool, Friend gives an example of a classroom using a page as a “teaching tool, recapping lessons and ‘synthesizing concepts’” – a highly valued educational goal – as well as a “way for parents and students to communicate.” The class’ page was “100 percent private. You have to be accepted as a friend of the page and to be accepted you have to have a connection. We control everything going onto the page.” Friend even comments on the fact that it works because FB is “familiar. Many already know how to use Facebook and now their kids can’t say ‘I don’t remember what we did in school today.’” 

I am convinced that both socially it is important that children realize that FB is not a parent-free, adult-free forum, a place to say or do whatever they want. There is no mythical Neverland where we don’t know what you’re doing, kids. It didn’t exist when I was a kid, pre-Internet and it doesn’t exist now. They, and now We, ALWAYS KNOW.  

And in fairness, the same goes for you too, Mom and Dad. I must also emphasize that parents and adults also realize that FB is the social media equivalent of being out in Times Square, and if you don’t think that it would be a good idea to be seen with most of your clothes off in that very public place, it probably isn’t a great idea on FB either.

The Meaning of the Word

The Meaning of the Word

My mother told me this story about a word that my father used to use on frequent occasions. For years, she pretended to know the meaning of the word when he would mumble it to her. He told her it was his favorite word. My mother wasn't the type to have a favorite word.

Growing up as the youngest in a family of four, there was eight years between my brother and me, then ten years between my sister and eleven years between my other sister after that. I became the sole witness to my parents' middle age. But from the start I knew that the two of them were very different. My father was a banker who wrote poetry; he read books like they were food, consuming them in big chunks at a time. My mother was a retired nurse who now stayed at home with me;  she had been an operating room nurse who was trained in the 1950's ways of the Nursing - a lot less science, a lot more service.

My mother never believed that my father could read through a five hundred page book in an afternoon sitting, so she would quiz him on it when he finished. He always got everything right, using as few words as possible. She joked that more than his preternatural ability to read,  his Hemingway-esque answers to all of her questions drove her stone cold crazy. My father was very non-social, notoriously silent as boyfriends and girlfriends would have to wait in the living room, sitting across from him while he, in his chair, rapidly ingested the words on a page in front of him. We always joked that he didn't like anyone but the family and his best friend, Mr. Collins.

My dad died about nine years ago. My mother at the time was angry at him because of the way he had died. My father had diabetes - a result of long term functional alcoholism - and also had lupus - a autoimmune disease that was discovered to our surprise as no fault of his own. Doctors had told us that our dad had had to have some arterial damage to his leg repaired. And then they told us that the lupus caused the grafts to be rejected. And then they told us his leg was going to have to be amputated. When we learned what would have to happen, we reacted in the best way we knew how - we followed my father's lead - we went ahead and did what had to be done without complaining about it.

But my dad however apparently had a secret plan, he had thought about the operation and come up with his own solution to his problem without burdening his wife or his children with either the necessity of caring for him as an invalid or the information about what he was going to do to himself. My father had decided that he wasn't going to live without a leg.

"Failure to thrive" was the reason behind my father's death, but we knew what had happened. A week or two before his actual passing, I leaned in to him and told him that I knew what he was doing. He had been conscious only for a few moments, but I swore he smiled at me around the tube down his throat.

My dad had, for all intents and purposes, taken his own life, slowly.

My mother, before the funeral services, admitted that she finally looked up the word that my dad had always claimed as his favorite, "and if there were a better word to describe that son-of-a-bitch, I don't know what it is," she scowled. My mom didn't normally swear.

The word was "esoteric," meaning not only private, secret or confidential, but only understood only by a select few. I had learned that word in high school and without too much of an understanding had figured out why it was my father's favorite.

 My mother however didn't allow herself to find the meaning until after her husband had died.

Young dancers get 'intense' at MiCo arts theater workshops

Young dancers get 'intense' at MiCo arts theater workshops

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