Classroom Management

More advice from PLANS.....

Classroom Management Strategies:

Stand at the door of your classroom and greet the students by name as they walk in each day. This is so simple and so easy to do, but it's incredibly effective. Think about how much more you're going to respect someone who knows you and cares about you as a person than someone who doesn't know you from anyone else in the room. If your brain isn't too tired and addled yet, you can try to ask each kid about something personal, mention something that's going on in his life.

Make your expectations clear and reasonable. My biggest pet peeve is hearing kids call one another homophobic names (even "that's so gay" bugs me), so I tell them in the first week that I don't like to hear that in my classroom. For the rest of the year, I always say the same thing when I hear them make homophobic comments: "Hey, I don't want to hear that kind of language in my room."

Don't make more than two or three rules, and be consistent in their enforcement (see: homophobic comments, above). I only have a few rules in my room, but I'm always bugging kids about them: no gay comments, no food in my room, don't be mean/don't hurt one another, and don't keep anyone from learning (including yourself). Of course, I have these posted in my room -- put in positive terms (DO be respectful to everyone in this room) -- and point to them sometimes to remind people.

ALWAYS BE CONSISTENT. You don't have to do the same things every day, you don't have to have a fast and firm routine (though it helps a lot of people) but you do have to be consistent in your expectations and reactions, and you do have to react the same way to all offenses, even when it's one of your favorite kids. If you find that you're not being consistent in your enforcement of a rule, then it's probably not very important to you; stop worrying about it. (For example, I could care less if kids are chewing gum or out of dress code -- I don't even notice. And no matter what anyone says, I refuse to beat myself up over not enforcing unimportant rules.) If it's important to you, always call people out on it.

Be able to admit mistakes without losing control. I used to just say, "Own up to your mistakes!" but recently I've been joint-conferencing with a teacher who endlessly apologizes for mistakes. Admit them, laugh about them, but don't roll over and show your pink belly to anyone.

Move people. It sounds simple and dumb but it works so well. I usually give people a warning like, "I don't think this is working out for you today. I need you both (or all) to be able to learn today, and I think that we could do better." Then they say, "No, Ms. Backes, we won't talk, promise." Then when they're back off task, talking again, I make them move to the other side of the room, or to one of the desks I have facing the walls. Make them. Stop class and wait for them if they're taking their time.

Plan ahead/anticipate trouble. "Last time you guys worked together, it didn't go so well. What are you going to do to make sure you're more successful today?"

Move people out of the room. There are several ways to do this. I have a "buddy teacher" -- the art teacher, whose classroom is across from mine -- and I have an arrangement with her for one kid at a time to sit on the floor facing the back door and read or work quietly. Sometimes I just make people sit right outside my room, where I can see them but they can't see my class. Sometimes I send people out and say, "come back in when you're ready to learn." (Yesterday I did this and the kid walked out the door and walked right back in and sat down. I almost said something, but he stopped the random yelling out and actually contributed to the discussion for the rest of class. Will wonders never cease.) Sometimes I send people who aren't acting up out to work in the hallway and library and keep the people who are being annoying in my room to yell at each other.

"Stop." (Actually, a huge part of my classroom management involves talking to my students the way I talk to my dogs. It works, no kidding.)

Keep moving around the room yourself. (At Grinnell we called this "proximity" -- now I call it 1000 steps a day on the old pedometer....) Circulate. Avoid the temptation to sit at your desk and grade papers or catch up on paperwork. Touch base with everyone.

Don't send more than a few kids a semester to the principal (or through whatever your discipline matrix may be...). My principal LOVES me because I've only sent two kids to her all year, and that was for fighting in my room. The other day, she showed me a referral another teacher had written, which had a needle taped to it (apparently the kid had been poking himself with the needle during class). "What would you have done in this situation?" asked the principal. "I would have said, 'Hey, quit poking yourself with a needle and get back to work.'" "Yes!" said the principal, "and it would have WORKED!"

Make jokes. If they're dropping F-bombs or whatever, I'll say, "Hello.... teacher? Authority figure? Language??" and they usually apologize. (Or sometimes just, "Hey, not appropriate.")

Play to your strengths. I'm funny, chatty, weird, intelligent, and totally spazzy, and I use all of these to my advantage in the classroom. I'm NOT detail-oriented, precise, or rememberfull, so I don't use classroom mangagement strategies that would require me to be so.

Do NOT freak out about stupid things. For example, today a teacher who I like and admire started yelling at one of my students for "sprawling all over the floor, and not acting like a lady!" I was like, "um, was she being disrespectful? No? Was she doing her work? Yes? Then I don't see a problem."

In fact, don't freak out about anything. Once or twice a year, you can strategically flip out and yell at the class (but NEVER do this from a place of anger! it HAS to be calculated, and you can't be personally invested in it -- shock and awe, friends, shock and awe) for something really unacceptable, like making fun of someone, ganging up on people, or whatever.

ALWAYS be polite. Say please and thank you even when you're giving orders. Never sink to their level. Never be sarcastic when disciplining. Never hold grudges; allow everyone to start with a fresh slate every single day (even if you're so sick of their little face you could scream!).

Along these lines, NEVER fight with a kid. Do NOT engage with them, no matter how surly they're acting, no matter how much they clearly need to be taught a big fat lesson about shutting the hell up and being respectful for once. If you fight, they'll fight back. If they're fighty, ignore them, separate them, give them (and yourself) time to cool down before discussing the situation rationally.

Be aware of the fact that the entire class will reflect your energy. If you walk in crabby, they'll get crabby. If you walk in relaxed, they'll feel relaxed (though if they're middle schoolers, you won't really be able to see a difference).

Stand or sit right near them. This works really well for the one kid who's always off task in a room full of generally work-oriented people. Sit on the desk right next to hers and keep tapping on her paper to re-orient her focus. "Okay, good, you've already gotten three questions done. What's number four? What are you going to do about it?" As long as they're engaged, they're not hurting anyone else.

A big part of what I'm doing this year is just not making that big a deal out of much. They swear, they call one another names, and I just keep reminding them that I don't want to hear that in my room.

Pick your battles. Honestly, there are a couple of kids who aren't going to do anything or learn anything this year. If you want to sleep in the back of the room, super, as long as you let everyone else in the room accomplish what they need to do. Push kids to excel, but know that if a kid absolutely refuses to do anything in your class, you can waste your time fighting with him, or you can use it to help the kids who are actually trying to learn.

Choose the worst two or three kids in your class and raise them up to be the people you want them to be. Catch them being even remotely good (for the most obnoxious kids, "good" often looks like "faintly acceptable,") and heighten their success in their eyes. "You did SUCH a good job today, and since everyone admires you so much, the whole class was more successful!" "Can I hang this on my wall so your hard work can help the other kids?" Tell the kids that they ARE the people you want them to be, and they'll BECOME those people. I swear this works, and you may just be the one teacher the kid can get along with. (Of course, there will always be the handful of kids you just don't get along with -- treat them super respectfully, never let them know how much they bug you, and pretend you like and admire them -- but don't waste too much of your time worrying about them, especially if they're committed to disrupting your class.)

"Hi, Connor, how's it going today?" "Hey dude, good to see you." "Thank you for raising your hand!" "Thank you for your hard work today!" "Awesome job today." "You guys worked so hard today; you rock!" And so forth.

Advice to Student and New Teachers

This is a list I've been keeping on PLANS, that charmingly old-fashioned Grinnellians only site. I started it after watching a bunch of first year teachers (often TFA people) struggling with things that seem obvious once you know them, but maybe aren't so obvious when you don't. And then I kept adding to it because that's what I do. I archive.

It's not a complete list, but no list of advice could be. Think of it as a work in progress... add comments of your own.


Advice to Student and New Teachers

As a young teacher, you're going to have to do it cleaner and better than the next guy. Dress professionally, arrive early, stay late. Don't gossip.

Observe as many parent conferences as you can. Notice how teachers talk to parents. Practice this on your own. Talk to your students' parents. Role play with your teaching friends. No kidding, knowing how to talk to parents is a huge thing.

Take a how-to-teach-reading class, even if you're secondary, even if you're not an English teacher. Even (especially?) if you're a math teacher. I can pretty much guarentee you that you'll have students who can't read, and you won't be able to teach them with the textbook or fancy handouts or anything if they can't read. One of the most frequent things I hear my colleagues say is, "I don't know how to teach reading in the content area! I can't teach reading... I was never trained to teach reading." Lack of training isn't an excuse. You'll have to teach reading. Learn to love it.

Spend time observing how different teachers around you handle classroom management and discipline. At Grinnell, we like to believe that as long as your lessons are engaging and authentic, you won't really need classroom management. Wrong! The most engaging lesson in the world won't help with a kid who has to see his mom having sex for meth at night or his dad get carted off to prison or whatever, and who comes to school itching for a fight. If the school where you're teaching has a discipline matrix, make a copy and stick it in your files. In fact, share them with your classmates and collect as many discipline ideas as possible, because you very well may end up in a school where budget cuts have destroyed whatever system they had and now they have no system and are looking for one. Be ready to do all your discipline and management by yourself, and plan not to rely too heavily on the office to help you out.

There is some truth in the old saying "Never smile before Christmas." Start the year strict and ease up as you go, because it will be nearly impossible to GET strict midway through the year.

Do NOT try to be friends with the kids. You are an adult in their lives. Regardless of how young you feel, regardless of how tiny the difference in years between your students and you, regardless of how much you still feel like a middle schooler, you are an authority figure. Behave accordingly. Do NOT have students over to your house, do not gossip with them, do not give them advice on what chicks they should take to Prom. We all rolled our eyes during the lecture on ethics, but (especially if you're teaching middle school or high school) some of your students will be incredibly fun and cool people, and it's not that hard to forget the difference between you -- for you. Your STUDENTS, on the other hand, will never forget the fact that you're their teacher. Have fun with your students, but never forget your place.

NEVER talk smack about the teachers/administrators/staff to any member of school community. Don't gossip to other teachers, or kids, or parents. If you must vent, call someone who has no connection to the school at all, like your dad. Or my dad. He's great about that stuff.

When you observe teachers, ask to see their gradebooks and see if they'll explain their system of grading to you. Personally, I grade on a points system, where every assignment is worth points in multiples of fives (to make the math easier for myself). I have a system of circles and highlighting that makes sense -- immediately -- to me. Other people keep track of absences in their gradebooks. Some people give participation grades. I give grades only for work toward mastery of state standards. Figure out what works for you and hone it.

Keep your grades on paper, even if the school makes you keep them on the computer. Our school switched to a terrible grade program this year, and the couple of naive new teachers who kept their grades on the computer only suffered when the program broke down (again and again!).

Keep all the pretend lessons you make to teach your classmates. Keep all the lessons your classmates teach you. Keep everything.

Make friends with parents. Think of ways to get them in your classroom. I've had parents come in and do dramatic readings of poems (they like to do Poe at Halloween), and other parents come in and talk to my classes about how they use reading and writing on the job. Meet with them as often as possible (but don't kill yourself to do so). Be professional and friendly.

Stop thinking you're going to be a great teacher right out of the gate. I know other people will say this, but you'll secretly think "Well, most people can't be great right away, but I'm different. I can be, if I just work hard enough." You're wrong. Teaching is one of the hardest jobs in the world, and everyone sucks their first year. Be okay with that.

Do not spend too much time at school! Hang out with your friends sometimes! Talk to adults. Get sleep! Take care of yourself, because no one else will, and if you don't take care of yourself, you won't be much help to anyone else.

Smile. Laugh. Keep a record of all the good & funny things that happen, or you may not want to keep going back. Play with the kids sometimes. Hang out with them. Have some fun once in a while. Let the kids know you like them.

Grief and Numbness

People on Plans this week were questioning themselves for feeling numb about the V-Tech shooting, or chastising themselves about caring so much about V-Tech when hundreds of innocents have died in Iraq and Darfur in the last month alone. Grinnellians were dealt a double blow on April 16, when the body of a student who had been missing since September was found in a country club swimming pool a few blocks from campus, where he'd drowned himself.

Watching tragedies from afar brings up feelings of guilt and -- in cases like V-Tech, where the media script for school shootings was written years ago -- complicity, that we live in and stand witness to a culture that would allow such a tragedy to happen, and then feed on it for weeks afterward.

How can we not feel angry? How can we not feel numb?

Empathy requires analogy for understanding. We draw comparisons to experiences we've had in our own lives to understand that which other people must endure. The closer the analogy, the deeper the empathy. Virgina cannot be discussed without mentioning Columbine; 9/11 was linked to the Oklahoma City bombings; Paul Shuman-Moore recalls stories of other friends lost, other students gone, other suicides. I've been thinking about Carl Grimm this week, thinking about how he sat across the aisle from me in one of my classes, about how I never really noticed him until he was gone. I remember now how I felt then, not quite to the fall break of my freshman year at Grinnell: freaked out and sad and scared and worried.... Just, as I imagine, as many of the kids at Virginia feel right now. Just as many of the kids at Grinnell feel right now. I'm thinking about Jonathan and Lenko and how the campus community reeled in the wake of their loss, how scary and sad and surreal that time was for all of us. And this is how I begin to understand what's happening in Blacksburg and Grinnell right now. My heart hurts for everyone in those communities because I've been there, I've been a scared, sad, angry, lost college student on a campus trying to deal with tragedy, violence, and loss. I know how it doesn't stop hurting, not entirely. I know that those kids will still be thinking about this week in five years, ten years. I know that the next time our national media is binging on the latest story of violence and terror and sorrow, the kids who are now living through the tragedies in Blacksburg and Grinnell will think back to this week and draw analogies to their own tragedies in order to move past the numbness and find empathy.


It's hard to empathize when you can't analogize. How many of us know what it's like to live through a war -- not the kind you see on Fox News, but the kind you see in the faces of your neighbors and family with every new loss? How many of us have had to lie silent on the floor of our house, waiting for the rain of bombing to stop? Not too many, I'd say, and so it's nearly impossible for us to understand that kind of tragedy. Without analogy, it's hard to feel.

Ours is a culture of binge-and-purge events: one week of everything we can learn about Virgina and then we'll be done. One week of Anna Nicole, one week of Katrina, one week of the Los Alamos fires, one week of Columbine, and then we're done, while the people directly involved are still in the middle of the sorrow and the loss, we'll turn our collective heads and hearts to the next big thing. It's not that we don't feel genuine emotion in the midst of this media-bombing: we all stood witness to the destruction of Katrina, of the Tsunamis, of the Amish school shooting, and we mourned. We stood witness for Iraq as well, in the beginning. Millions of people marched in protest, millions of people stayed glued to their TVs, weeping, as the United States dropped the first bombs on Baghdad in March of 2003. We cared -- maybe we still do. But we have to get on with the business of being alive, and life is comprised of the mundane.

And yes, we do develop a sort of numbness. We have to. It's not possible to live every single day in fear and anger and overwhelming sadness -- and still remember to pick up bread for sandwiches, and pay the phone bill, and write that thank you note to grandma. We have to compartmentalize, we have to be able to shut things down. We have to be able to turn off the endless loop of planes hitting the Twin Towers, walk out into the sunlight, and pet a puppy. We must, we must turn from the tragedy and walk back into our own lives, or we won't be alive at all.

Oh, Virginia.....

Maybe I shouldn't admit this, but I am completely riveted to the news about Va. Tech. Maybe it's because I'm a teacher, and I've had to spend the last few days reviewing lock-down and emergency procedures with my students (coincidentally, we had a sloppy lockdown drill last Friday where one of my students "got killed" -- and let me tell you how much I loved hearing that the principal had told her "you're dead, Reina"). Maybe it's because I lived in Norris at Grinnell, and even though I know their Norris is a classroom building, I can't help but imagine some mutant cross between our Norris and ARH. Maybe it's because of what happened at Grinnell in the fall of 1998, when we spent a few dazed weeks wondering why Carl would do that to himself, trying to pick up the pieces in the aftermath.... or Grinnell in the spring of 2003, when we all sat inside a bubble of tragedy and sadness that seemed inescapable.... The analogies of tragedy, I guess, and I suppose it's normal to try to put a face on such loss, to try to comprehend it..... I don't know. All I know is that I'm so heartbroken over it all, and the closer-to-home Grinnell story, as it unfolds, somehow ties VA with Grinnell, and all we lived through there.


God. I have nothing profound or illuminating to say. I keep coming back to something Vonnegut said, in advice to new babies on this planet. "God damn it," he said, "you've got to be kind."

Pat: Miss? You're not going to be happy.
Me: What.
Pat: Don't get mad, Miss.
Me: What happened, Pat?
Jenni: He spilled soda on your floor!
Me: (raised eyebrows at Pat)
Pat: Well... yes. That's true. It was an accident, Miss.
Me: See, Pat, this is why I don't want you to bring food into my room. If you have cornnuts, there's cornnuts all over my floor. Soda, there's soda on the floor.
Pat: Miss?
Me: Yes?
Pat: There's more.
Me: What.
Pat: I used a kleenex off your desk to clean it up.
Me: Okay...
Pat: Well, I *thought* it was a kleenex. I grabbed the first thing I saw. I thought it was a kleenex.
Me: What was it, Pat?
Pat: Miss, it's nothing. Just don't be mad when you find the paper.
Me: WHAT paper?
Pat: The paper I thought was a kleenex.
Me: You thought a piece of paper was a kleenex.
Pat: Yes, Miss, I didn't realize it was a piece of paper until after I'd used it to wipe up the soda.
Me: I find this very hard to believe.
Pat: Then it got all crumbly and fell apart. So you couldn't read the writing.
Me: There was WRITING on it, Pat? On the paper you took off my desk to wipe up your soda? What did it say?
Pat: I couldn't see it through the soda. It's in the garbage. I think it was someone's phone number maybe?
Me: A parent's phone number?
Pat: Miss, I don't know.
Me: How am I going to explain to a parent that I couldn't call him because one of my students thought the piece of paper with his phone number on it was a KLEENEX and used it to MOP UP a spill??
Pat: I just wouldn't tell him, Miss. Just don't tell him.

Two seconds later, another student tipped her desk over and spilled her Arizona Iced Tea down the backs of both my legs. Luckily I was wearing black. I announced to the class that I was no longer their teacher but merely a person with wet pants, and I ignored them for the next few minutes while I tried to get as much tea as I could out of my pants.


Oh, middle school.

Notes from 1994

I just got the best envelope EVER. Oh my gosh.

Okay, some back story: fourteen years after middle school, I'm still in touch with my seventh grade science teacher, Debe VanSteenderen (then simply "Ms. Dankel"). She is perhaps my greatest influence as a teacher -- she was weird and wacky and strict and hilarious and encouraged us to be as weird as we possibly could -- and we ran with it. And we learned a TON. I can still recite the path of the blood through the heart (and I can do it REALLY FAST). Most importantly, she taught me -- in middle school, when conformity is at its absolute height -- that it's okay to think outside the box, that you get credit just for being weird and funny. As a teacher, I often measure myself by her example, and ask myself what Debe would do. When I feel really discouraged and uninspired, I call her for advice. When I'm in Wisconsin, if at all possible, I visit her class and admire the projects her students have done (she makes them do reports on animals and then they have to make hats to wear while reporting on those animals -- some of them are quite elaborate!!).

Anyway, apparently Debe has a folder of stuff I made for her (or just gave her) in middle school. Today, I got a big envelope full of relics from Middle School Molly. Sometimes I wish I could know myself as a kid -- know what I was like, from an adult perspective -- but then I think I might have been the kind of kid that you secretly want to punch in the face all the time. Hard to say, really. This envelope was like a secret message from a long-ago-me, calling into the future (and saying, I guess, "Don't forget what a FREAK you were, Backes!!") Inside the envelope -- there's a copy of this Christmas book I made for Debe, a parody of The Night Before Christmas, adapted to include lots of 7th grade science inside jokes and strange little illustrations and general middle school weirdness. (Sample verses: The panties were hung /by the ceiling with care, / In hopes that Ms Dankelclaus / soon would be there ... And Ann in her jammies / a pillow over my head, /About to go to sleep / (We sleep in seperate beds).

So weird! So stupid and funny!

And THEN, there's a copy of this story I wrote in 8th grade, called "The Evil One," which is a 6 page long single spaced EPIC about how the evil ghost of a taxidermied squirrel put a curse on me and followed me through the school. My 8th grade English teacher, Mr. Hoffman, gave me an A++++!! That's the best grade I EVER got in my life. At the end of my stupid little story, he wrote: Molly, A++++, You amaze me -- this is wonderful - so well-developed and your choice of words is great! You could rival S.King in some of his chapters. You are a writer! I am so glad to read what you write! Mr. H

Looking back, I am astonished by the degree and depth of support and encouragement I had as a kid -- no wonder I came back to teach middle school! What a powerful statement that was: "You are a writer!" And the fact that Debe keeps a folder of stuff 13-year-old Molly made her, a hundred years ago? Amazing. And in the card she sent, she says: I stopped by Nate Mahr [8th grade science teacher]'s & Sandy Owens [7th grade geography teacher]'s rooms and relayed your greetings. Nate started talking about some fish drawing he has from you. You have really touched the lives of those who taught you.

You might be thinking, what kind of person still gets validation from her middle school teachers? Oh man, I tell you, only an extremely lucky one. I feel like I've come full circle here -- now I'm the crazy middle school teacher -- but I'm SO lucky to still have my old teachers and mentors to lean on a little. And really? The fact that I have had this person in my life keeping my stories and projects, watching over me and encouraging me, teaching me, for fourteen years now? I'm absolutely blessed. I only hope I can give as much to my students someday.





Amazing.

Things, Terrible and Terrific

State testing is extremely stressful. Trying to keep a bunch of overly-tested kids in check (and the principal insists we "teach" them in the couple of hours of class after testing. SO fun.) is extremely stressful. Parent conferences are (can be) extremely stressful. Doing all three in one day makes me want to drive off a cliff. AND we have to stay until 6 on Friday? AND come back on Saturday morning?? Screw you, district!




BUT! Yesterday a herd (seriously, like 11 kids) of 9th grade boys who I'd taught in 7th and/or 8th grade appeared in my classroom door. First of all, so cute, since I spent two years nagging and yelling at these kids for being naughty, and I'm still their favorite teacher. Second of all, I asked them -- as I always do -- "What can I teach my 8th graders to help them be more successful in 9th grade English? What do you wish I had taught you guys?" And the boys looked at each other, shrugged, and said, "Nothing, Ms. B. Compared to your class, 9th grade is EASY."

SWEET.

The Middle School Manifesto

Here's a conversation I have a lot:

Person X: What do you do?
Me: I'm a teacher.
X: Oh! What do you teach?
Me: Middle school.
X: …
Me: 7th and 8th grade.
X: …………………….um, WHY??


I have this conversation with lots of people, including, sometimes, my own students (though then it's more along the lines of, "Ms. Backes, I feel sorry for you! Why do you teach middle school, anyway??"). I have a million answers to these questions: depending on the time of year, time of day, person asking, and how I'm feeling at that particular moment, I change my answer. When I'm feeling glib, I say, "Well, most of my friends were joining the Peace Corps, so…." When I'm feeling honest but brief, I tell people, "I wanted to see if I could make Middle School suck slightly less for some kids." (Which is to say that middle school is going to suck for everyone. It's the Trial by Fire everyone must go through to emerge as adults in this culture. You're ugly and uncertain and everyone seems to hate you, even [especially!] your best friends. You suspect that whole groups of people gather just to make fun of you behind your back – and more often than not, you're right.) (We don't trust the people who say they liked middle school. We find them to be a little too aggressive for our tastes.)

Sometimes I think about the purpose of teaching at all. Lately, I've been extremely proud of how well I've been teaching to the test – a fact which, if I ever meet 2002 Molly in a dark alley, will cause her to punch me in the face and leave me to die in a dumpster. Of course, most people who are at all thoughtful about standardized testing realize what a false and unfair measure it is of any child and any school. I justify my test-teaching by telling myself that I have to work within this system, and this system tells the community at large that my wonderfully backwards little school is a "failure" every time we miss making Adequate Yearly Progress under No Child Left Behind. Wouldn't it be great, for once, if we could just make AYP?

Then again, it's more important for me to get my students ready for high school. I hold them to extremely high standards, and make sure that they're getting an education equal to that of the other middle school in our district (the school on the wealthier side of the district, which is generally recognized as the "better" school). Whenever I see former students, now high schoolers, I ask them what I can teach – or teach better – to help my current students get ready for high school. If I had to choose between teaching to the test and teaching to high school, I would choose the latter. When my principal suggests I spend less time focusing on teaching writing, I smile and nod and ignore her. I know from personal experience that being a good writer will get you far – farther, perhaps, than any other individual skill. It's important to be a good reader and it's important to have the kind of good problem solving skills you can learn in math, but writing is a skill you'll need across the curriculum, through high school and college, and for the rest of your life. My ninth graders come back and tell me that all the writing I made them do got them ready for high school, and so I'll keep teaching writing, even when the standardized tests say they need to know more about antecedents and less about how to write a good thesis. (I'll only teach to the parts of tests I agree with!)

Last spring, a bunch of my friends and I got into this amazing discussion about the purpose of school. We were on Doug's front porch, sprawled out across the steps, and roughly divided between the homeschoolers and the regular schoolers. The people who'd gone all the way through public school generally seemed to believe that the purpose of school was to learn a set number of facts, things that everyone needed to know in order to be considered not-a-dumbass in our culture. The American Canon of Cultural Knowledge, you might say. Or, as E.D. Hirsch calls it, Cultural Literacy – those things you need to know in order to be a literate member of our culture. Those of us who went through traditional school argued for the importance of this kind of knowledge (mainly, I suspect, because it's the way we were taught ourselves and the values we learned to believe in). However, the homeschoolers argued that they don't need to know this information – why should they, when they could just as easily Google it? Dan kept gesturing to the phone on his hip. "It's all right here," he'd say, and though we argued that a broader base of knowledge helps you better to judge what information is valid and what's crap, I think he has a good point. Is any of that information really necessary? Do we really need to know facts?

Ultimately, I think the point of public schooling is acclimation to this culture – people often say that education is the great equalizer, and in the sense that public schools teach us how to be a part of this culture – how to be Americans – that's true. And so, in my teaching, I have a number of goals: 1) to make middle school suck less for kids (by being a decent and understanding adult, someone trustworthy, non-judgmental, and smart that kids can talk to; by being an adult who cares about kids and who will work hard to do what's best for them; by teaching kids that it's okay – even awesome – to be different in a time when conformity is king; by helping them to think more about the ways their words and actions affect the people around them; by constantly nagging the other adults around me not to accept language like "fag" and "wetback" and "cracker" in their classrooms); 2) to teach to the test (by teaching all the state standards before March; by teaching the kids test-taking skills – skills which will come in handy again and again, when they take the SAT and the ACT and the LSAT and the GRE etc etc); 3) to teach kids how to be good readers, good critical thinkers, and great writers; and 4) to teach kids how to be a part of this culture, a culture which grows more diverse every day, a culture which demands a certain degree of tolerance and acceptance for difference. Melting pot, tossed salad, whatever the dominant metaphor, the United States was founded on principles of diversity and tolerance, and I'll do my best to teach in the spirit of the Constitution as long as I can.

And when all that becomes too abstract, I'll write down little stories that will help me to leave laughing, and remind me of why I got into this in the first place. Why do I teach middle school? All of these reasons, yes, and more. But when tempers are high and patience is short, the most important reason still remains: I teach because I love these kids.


***

Dakota: Ms. Backes, is it racism if a black guy calls another black guy "nigger"?
Me: Well... yes. I think so. Some people might not agree.
Dakota: What about when my friends call me "wetback"?
Me: Yes. What you have to understand is that you can't take the connotations away from these words. Even if *you* don't mean it, they're still hurtful words. Even if you mean it as a joke, it might still hurt.
Dakota: Like when we call Mina a dumb blonde.
Me: Exactly. You have to know that when a person hears something often enough, they start to believe it.
Dakota: Like.... Mina might start thinking she's dumb?
Me: She might. If she hears it enough. If you guys tell her every day.
Mina: I'm not. I'm NOT! I'm actually very smart!
Me: You ARE, Mina.
Dakota: Wait -- Mina, how does it feel when we say you're a dumb blonde?
Mina: It feels CRAPPY!
Dakota: It DOES?
Mina: Yeah!
Me: See? Even if it's a joke -- when you hear the same thing over and over, it's hard not to internalize it. It's hard not to feel like it's true. If a little girl grows up and gets told every day that she's ugly, even if she grows up to look like Beyonce, what is she going to think when she looks in the mirror?
Class: She's ugly! She'll think she's ugly!
Me: So when we talk about internalized racism, we're talking about the kind of racism that's so deep inside you maybe can't even see it, but it comes from hearing words like this about yourself a million times, even just jokes.
Dakota: I'm sorry for calling you a dumb blonde, Mina.
Mina: Thank you.


*and yes, I do actually use words like "connotation" with my 7th graders, because they're quickly turning into the race of super-enlightened geniuses I've been raising them up to be.


***

Actual note from nurse:

Please admit Darien to class. He is okay physically! Not mentally! HA HA!

***



Ana: Ms. Backes, we love your jacket! It's raw!

Me: Raw?

Harriet: Yeah, fresher than fresh!

Me: (laughing) So fresh, we just pulled it out of the ocean!

Ana: Exactly!

Me: Well.... thanks, I guess!



***


The last story I will tell about Roots:


So we're watching the final episode of Roots (we've watched the entire miniseries, now, spread out across almost 6 months), and in the very end, there's a scene where Chicken George is holding a gun, pointed at a white man, and says, "Mr. Brant, we just want to leave this county peaceably," only he pronounces it like "peaceable-ly." After this line, in every class, every single class I watched it with, the whole class would murmur, "peaceable-ly." For some reason, that just killed me, that quiet, spontaneous repetition of that word. For one moment, in one word, my room full of disparate elements and wildly different personalities became one creature, one community, enchanted with and lulled by one oddly-pronounced word. It felt like that moment where you look around at all the relatives you've been fighting with and loving over the years and realize you're all part of one family. It felt like being in church. Peaceable-ly.

The Blog I Never Wrote

Every day as I'm driving away from school, I think about the blog I'm going to write someday about how my students only recognize an event as having happened if they filmed it with their camera phone. After tutoring today, I stood outside in the February wind with one of my students who told me that he and his friends are making a "Mid-School Jackass" which made me laugh. He told me about how they broke a tile over another kid's head, and it was hilarious, "but it didn't count, 'cause we didn't get it on film." Recently I've had students beg me to allow them to bring out their phones to show me films of them jumping over walls, falling off piles of ice, and even barfing. For the record, no, I do not want to watch a video of you barfing.

Someday I'll write a blog in which I ponder the meaning of this cultural shift: when we were kids, we did stupid things, but we kept them in our memories, not in our phones. Some of my favorite moments with Ali involve random acts of embarassment, but none of them are caught on film. Would my memory of her falling off of Darby Gym be different if mediated through the lens of a camera phone? Would our famous New York rest stop coffee coolatta fight of 2001 have reached the heights of stickiness and hilarity it did if one of us had to stop to film it? And is this complaint, this "Oh the youtube generation..." diatribe just another rant of Old vs Young, Us vs Them, Lame vs Awesome? No different from the hundreds of senior classes of Grinnellians complaining that the freshman classes are SO conservative this year! They're not Grinnellians at all! et cetera.... Is it just that? Am I old?

This blog, I assure you, will be thoughtful and poignant and hilarious. It will delve deeply into the collective psyche of Young America, their foibles and their faux memories. It will get at the very fabric of existence of which we are all a part, eternally creating and dividing and attempting to control.

It will blow your mind. You'll be thinking about it for days.





...when I get around to writing it. It's just that I've been so tired lately! Why don't they do a 10:00 newscast at 7:30? And my arthritis has been bothering me lately. These fingers can't type the way they once could. Sometimes I can hardly hold the pen to keep up my daily fiber intake diary. The effort it takes to stay regular! I tell you what.



















But I'm not old!



(and speaking of old... happy birthday, natalie!)

Best moment of the whole week:

It's Friday afternoon and all the 8th grade teachers are sitting in the library after school, postponing a weekend so close we can taste it, exhausted and burned out and sooooo over it. And... we're being forced to watch a cheesy video from the NAEP about testing. Great. On the TV, a shiny happy person with a huge saccherine grin (and a cushy government assessment coordination job, no doubt!) says sincerely, "Teaching is the most rewarding job there is!"


As if on cue, without even looking at one another, five teachers burst out laughing. Big laughs, giant booming guffaw laughs. The principal looks irritated as hell, which makes us laugh harder. It's a full minute before we can pull ourselves back together.



Ah, Fridays. Ah, Middle School.

Barack do you like me; circle yes or maybe

It's a snow day, so naturally it's time to take a quiz on what candidate I should vote for. I'm actually a little surprised that Obama is my 100% (but pleased, I feel about him the way I felt about Jesse Kiley in 9th grade biology -- he's so intelligent and charming, and everyone likes him so much, I'm completely shocked that he likes me back -- insofar as "scoring 100% compatibility with me on some internet quiz" is equal to "likes me back" -- because it's Valentine's Day, we'll say they're equivalent).

Anyway. I'm also surprised that Clinton's so far down on the list; I shall have to investigate this further. I am having a hard time saying anything about Clinton right now without sounding like the people I heard at a recording of a Clinton Q&A yesterday, and though I think they were probably all very nice people, I kind of wanted to punch them in the face.

But seriously, Richardson beats both Vilsack and Edwards? Hometown hero love, I guess. The Albuquerque Journal is ripping him a new one, lately. They keep printing these front page articles about him being some sort of monster. GOVZILLA! they crow, and I'm a little taken aback by the vitriol I'm seeing here. I would assume that we'd be super psyched for him, or at least, you know, mildly supportive. Like if your cousin was running for office, you'd be somewhat excited and happy for him, even if you thought he was a douchebag. But that's just me.

And I love Edwards. He knows poor people. That's a huge deal to me. I honestly believe that most presidentially-driven politicians have never actually known any poor people. And no, talking to "Sally Johnson, a single mother of 3 in East St. Louis," for two minutes does NOT count as knowing poor people.


(100%) 1: Sen. Barack Obama (D)
(91%) 2: Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D)
(86%) 3: Retired Gen. Wesley Clark (D)
(85%) 4: Sen. John Kerry (D)
(80%) 5: Ex-VP Al Gore (D)
(80%) 6: Gov. Bill Richardson (D)
(76%) 8: Ex-Sen. John Edwards (D)
(74%) 9: Gov. Tom Vilsack (D)
(73%) 10: Sen. Hillary Clinton (D)
(65%) 11: Sen. Joseph Biden (D)
(46%) 12: Gov. Mitt Romney (R)
(43%) 13: Rep. Ron Paul (R)
(42%) 14: Ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R)
(38%) 15: Gov. George Pataki (R)
(34%) 16: Sec. Condoleezza Rice (R)
(30%) 17: Gov. Mike Huckabee (R)
(24%) 18: Ex-Rep. Newt Gingrich (R)
(19%) 19: Sen. John McCain (R)


http://www.selectsmart.com/plus/select.php?url=08frontrunners


Lately, I've been hearing much talk comparing votes for Obama and/or Clinton to votes for Nader -- wasted, thrown away votes -- when we could or should be voting for someone who could actually win. To me, that's a pretty bleak assertion -- after all, the media's going to tell us the things that make better stories (or stories at all), and not necessarily the truest things, so "Could America Elect a Black Man????" is going to be a popular story, especially if the reporters interview lots of experts who say, resoundingly, no. The media is going to say no, no black man, no white woman.... until the day after we elect a black man or white woman, when the media will cry "AMERICA'S READY FOR A BLACK MAN!" Reporters, of course, don't like to look wrong. Like Senators. And they'll look back in retrospect and pretend they saw it coming all along, or they'll say that if they knew then what they know now.....


...but until then, it will be up to us to believe, and work for change.


And really, in this case, isn't strategic voting a form of racism? What would have happened if all the Freedom Riders had told themselves that "America isn't ready" to accept African Americans as equal citizens, and decided to fight instead for a cause they were more likely to win? Come on, kids, we've been waiting our whole lives for causes as worthy as those our parents had, and now we're in the SAME place our parents were in the late 60s and early 70s. Vietnam, Kent State, changing norms and expectations of gender and relationship roles, barriers in race and class and sex breaking down.... and here we are again, if we embrace it.


...I think of my mother in college, or Ali's mom, sitting in Grinnell's South Lounge with her friends and boyfriends, watching their draft numbers come up on TV, smoking and laughing and drinking and loving and fighting and fucking and working for change, working to make the world a better place for their children -- US -- and their children's children -- and now it's our turn to pick up where they left off.


And if we can't -- if we don't -- then we deserve every label the old folks can throw at us, we deserve every accusation of apathy and lack of focus, because we're too busy thinking in text-message-sized blips to see the big picture.

How Charming....

..> ..> From: Kudo

http://www.myspace.com/kjadedaniels

Date: Feb 9, 2007 7:13 PM
Flag as Spam or Report Abuse [ ? ]
Subject: u r fucking RUDE!!!
Body: You are an abomination to the lord and should parish in hell for what you said about rainbows and God having "Gay sex"! Not everyone is like you! You filthy nasty little girl. Grow up!


..>..>

************************************************************

This precious little missive was sent to me today by some random 17 year old girl in Las Vegas. It strikes me as odd on several levels:

1) the child clearly has no sense of humor. However, since this is often the case when it comes to people's understanding and definition of divinity, I get it. I do. I can see why she -- as (I infer) a God-loving/fearing person -- would be offended. I feel the same way when people tell me that they hate gays in the name of the very same lord who tried to teach people about love and forgiveness.

2) Okay, all theological questions aside, if you believe that God invented the Heavens and the Earth, doesn't it follow logically that God created sex as well? Right? Sex is supposed to be a sacrament, right? But God also created it to be fun as well... I don't know, I like to think of a playful divinity, one who went out and played with the platypusses and giraffes and ellies back in the garden. It stands to reason that God would have had as much sex as possible, straight and gay.

2.5) Well, the Greek gods had sex.

2.75) I once told my friends on Norris 4th that I planned to have as much sex as possible in case a god took a human form (or, you know, like a shower of gold coins or a swan or something) to have sex with me. Because what if a god went to all that trouble to change forms, and then I was a bad lay? Really, wouldn't that be a sin against the gods?

3) What I don't get is randomly sending people mean messages. Seriously, what?

4) My latest hobby is picking up student notes and reading them.... they encompass the entire spectrum of human drama: loudly proclaimed love, abject hate, jealousy, infidelity, sympathy, comedy, gossip, and friendship -- all wrapped in neat little packages of bad handwriting and poor grammar. It's funny to have one such note directed at me.... (for the first time in perhaps 15 years).

5) Isn't it weird that when I was this little girl's age, she was in first grade? And now she's sending me mean myspace messages? I think the world is so neat that way. In high school, I had to do a family tree, and as part of my project, I made a picto-graph charting the geographic locations of my three parents in the last 50 years. I just found it so incredibly interesting that three totally separate human beings, born in different cities in different years, at one point in time living in three separate countries (Vietnam, France, and Chicago, which is its own country in my book), could intersect in such a way that they found themselves sharing one life, raising two little girls. I just think that's awesome. I think it's pretty neat, too, that when I was going to Disney World and crying over the death of my golden retriever and learning all 50 states in alphabetical order, there was a baby born in Las Vegas who would grow up to call me a filthy nasty little girl. Small world, right??

6) And, um... for the record:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.





I'm just saying....

I had a flashback to my first year of teaching the other day when I walked into the building, immediately greeted by a couple of 8th graders who were currently supposed to be in my class racing each other down the front hallways, and then into my classroom to find my kids running around chasing each other, fighting, garbage everywhere, desks and chairs strewn throughout the room, and the (COMPLETELY INEFFECTIVE) sub sitting in the back corner, knitting. It took me about 15 minutes to regain control, but after an extremely stern lecture from Ms. Backes (VERY rare), I had my room cleaned, organized, and the kids looking properly chastised. But still -- I will admit it freaked me out a little. Sometimes Lord of the Flies hits a little too close to home, yes?

*

Things found in my room after 1/2 day with the sub:

-- pictures of someone's grandparents (next to my computer)
-- LABRYNTH on DVD (IN my desk!)
-- a scrap of paper that says "Dorfus Dippin Doodle" (in my gradebook)
-- garbage everywhere
-- good kids gone bad

*

Annie: Ms. Backes, is ran an adverb?
Me: Ran? No. It's a verb.
Annie: (whining) But it's in past tense!
Me: Um... true. But it's still a verb. Adverbs tell how you do something. So... how did you run?
Annie: By moving my legs.

*

Gina: I can't think of any more adjectives for dog!
Melusina: Are you writing a story about DOGS?
Gina: (very dignified) About a dog PRINCE.
Melusina: Oh, okay. That makes sense!

*

Dakota: Ms. Backes, are you double-jointed anywhere?
Me: No, I'm normal.
Dakota: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!! NORMAL!

*

Every now and again, my 7th graders manage to bring me down to their level....


(Coming in from Hey-Don't-Push-Each-Other-In-The-Snow Duty)

Jerrod: Ms. Backes, did you get a sunburn?
Me: ...
Jerrod: Because your forehead's all shiny and your face is pink!


Okay, the pink cheeks can be explained away by the 12 degree temps outside this morning. The shiny forehead? Just embarassing.

*

Mrs. James: Kurt, go wash your face. It's all messy.
Kurt: Oh god! Do I have DONUT FACE???

Tales of Intrigue and Humdrum

I saw a shooting star tonight. It arced down across the dark Sandias, sparkling as it fell over the twinkling city below. Simple and profound, it seemed a fitting end to this evening.

I spent the night at the Launchpad, an Albuquerque bar a block away from the now-closed Gorilla Tango Theatre, a building which was my second home for almost two of my four years in this city. The last time I was at the Launchpad was 2003, a few months after I moved here. Then, I went to see Mistletoe, a band featuring a guy I was dating at the time. After their set, I sat with him at the merch table, losing myself in the familiarity of fan/band banter, a ritual I'd grown fond of while dating Nat – though, as I told Doug and Rory tonight, there are few fans more awkward and annoying (and, I must admit, sweet in their way) than worshipful, drunk sousaphone nerds. Sitting there while he chatted with fans, I recognized a familiar sticker on the table: an orange YoungBlood Brass Band logo, from their "Unlearn" tour. It was a moment of dizzying vertigo, of new life meeting old, a little of Oregon in New Mexico.

I had another such moment tonight. Doug (and later, Tony and Rory) and I went to the Launchpad to hear my friend Dave's band Cougar play. I sat up in the balcony, surrounded by my New Mexico friends, watching an old friend from high school play. Oregon meets New Mexico. Watching from above, I realized I've been listening to Dave's music for eleven years now, since those first One Lard Biskit shows at the tiny House of Sounds in Madison when so many of us would pack into the room that an open door would reveal clouds of steam into the frigid February night air. There is a comfort in this: touchstones, rituals, moments you return to throughout your life which serve to remind you that it's a continuous journey. That you're living the same life, still, that you're the same person, still, as you were as a spazzy, happy high school sophomore.

New Mexico captured my heart the second time I saw its low brown hills, its soft violet mountains in the first light of morning. My first time here, I was a baby – one, maybe, or two – visiting my grandparents who lived in Alamogordo. That visit, I don't remember at all; I know it only through photographs of one year old Molly petting a boa constrictor at a New Mexico zoo. The second time, in March of 1995, I came on tour with the Oregon High School orchestra. As our plane landed in Albuquerque, I looked out the window and saw a coyote keeping pace with us along the runway, and I remember in that moment feeling certain that I was the only person on the plane – the only person in the world – who saw it. On that trip, I fell in love with these modest mountains and this endless clear sky. I remember sitting next to the Taos River for what seemed like hours, letting the land make its imprint on my skin.

Tonight as I watched the band, I remembered that trip. Dave's parents were chaperones, and his mother took care of me when I fainted at a concert (Marcy Rosen, cellist). Later, Judy told me to give myself permission to follow my dreams, to give myself the luxury of a year to do exactly what my heart told me.

My heart told me to move to New Mexico.

When I was in Wisconsin over the holidays a few weeks ago, I sat in my childhood bedroom and flipped back through my senior yearbook. I almost didn't recognize the person it belonged to – there were pictures of me I couldn't remember posing for, and long, fondly written signatures with which I couldn't match faces. But then, in the senior index, I found myself: "Molly Backes: Moving to the mountains of New Mexico with my pet donkey and career as a writer."

Recently, my students wrote mid-term reflection papers, looking back over 2006 and ahead to 2007. One student, an 8th grader, said that the biggest accomplishment of 2006 was beginning to know herself, to figure out who she really was, a project she intended to pursue through 2007. I found this to be incredibly charming. Pausing by her desk, I said quietly, "I love this. I think it's extremely important. And believe me, it's a lifelong goal. I'm still figuring out who I am, to this day."

Lately, I've felt more like myself than I'd felt in a long time, as if I am once again rediscovering Molly Backes, who she is at the core. I am at once the person I am now, in this moment – teacher, writer, friend – and the person I was at 14, discovering New Mexico for the first time, and the person I was at 22, coming back to this familiar sloping horizon, wandering out in the desert at dawn.

Hearing Dave play tonight bookended my time here – in a sense, reassuring me that 15 year old Molly was here too, wandering through the Plaza in Santa Fe, talking to the Skogens, falling in love with this land. Oregon meets New Mexico; this is who I am today. Instead of a donkey, I have a fat, sleepy brown dog, and though it may not be a career, I have written three novels, a number of short stories and poems, and hundreds of journal pages, here, in the mountains of New Mexico.


Just as I said I would.

Senile yet?

Work Time. Everyone's actually working really quietly, including me at my desk. The radio's playing quietly... & then the song SUPERFREAK comes on.

Me: Hey you guys, anyone seen Little Miss Sunshine?
Class: Um... no...
Me: Oh man, you should! It's so funny!
J: I thought it was boring.
Me: WHAT? No, what about the part at the end where the little girl is dancing to this song? Or when the van is like: MEEEP MEEEEEEEEEP! So FUNNY! And the other drivers are like, shaking their hands and the guy's like shrugging! And the van won't start, and the whole family has to push it and run after it? HILARIOUS!!
Class: (looks on in quiet amusement)
T: (really nicely, as if he's a little worried that I'm losing my mind) Um, Miss Backes? Didn't you say you didn't want us to interrupt one another? And... aren't you kind of interrupting us now?
Me: Oh my gosh, you're right! Get back to work!
J: Oh Ms. Backes.....


I find it almost unbearably charming when kids treat me like I'm just this side of senile. They seem so nervous and encouraging, like if they say just the right thing they can keep me from losing it altogether.


*


C: (murmur murmur)
Me: Okay, Caden, time for you to move!
C: Oh man! It's all your fault, Trent, for making me talk to you!
Me: Yes, that really was awful of him to force air across your vocal chords.
T: I did! I used my Jedi Mind Powers!
K: Star Wars is GAY!
T: (without missing a beat) See? I made you say that!

More funny oral reports....

K: I have a question. How many variations have there been on the Art Deco style?
D: MS.BACKES!!! OH MY GOD!! That was actually an intelligent question! You should give him extra credit for that!!!



"FDR was basically a mama's boy. He had a stamp collection."



I: And that's my report on the Empire State building. Any questions.
J: Yeah. Is it still standing today?
Me: The EMPIRE STATE BUILDING????
J: Ohhhhhh! I didn't realize it was THAT empire state building!



E: And he wrote this song called "Rhapsody in Blue...."
K: Wait, George Foreman wrote MUSIC?
Class: What?
E: George Gershwin!
K: OH! Because I knew about the sandwich grill, but not the music!

Feliz Hanukkah!

This year, my pet peeve is people who are crabby that they "have" to say "Happy Holidays" instead of merry xmas, as well as the people who take Wal-Mart's reclamation of "Merry Xmas" as some sort of F-You PC-ers! victory. First of all, weird. Second of all, I grew up in Madison, home of the Freedom From Religion people, so the idea of any sort of xmas in schools is totally foreign to me. Third, I grew up a Unitarian Universalist in a town that was 50/50 Catholic/Lutheran, so the winter holidays were always a little rough and weird for me personally, especially in school. And fourth, I just don't see why taking other religions/cultures/beliefs into account is such a huge problem that you have to be such a smug asshole about it.


Anyway... the other morning at a staff meeting, the Spanish teacher got up and waved his arms in his special way, announcing in this very aggressive way: "We're going to be singing Christmas carols in Spanish next week, so if that OFFENDS anyone, we'll make sure not to sing too close to your room! We will be singing CHRISTIAN songs, so let me know if that's a PROBLEM!" (He stared right at me the whole time, even though I've made absolutely no mention of my non-xianity. Anyway.)


The next day, some students told me they had to go to his class next, and they were all moaning and whining like they do. I said, "You guys are learning xmas carols, right?"
"Yeah...."
"Tell him you want to learn some Hanukkah songs in Spanish," I said. "That would be awesome."
The kids laughed and agreed.


Later that afternoon, I was out on the bus pad when I heard the teacher screaming at me. "THIS IS YOUR DOING! JEWISH SONGS?????? YOU TOLD THEM TO SAY THAT!!!!!"
I shrugged and said mildly, "Hey, if your students want to express appreciation for a diversity of religious beliefs, I think you should support that."


And then I walked away, laughing quietly to myself, while he waved his arms and yelled after me.



Good times.

Oral Reports! (The funniest time of the year!)

Kaitlynn: During the Great Depression, lots of people lived in Hoovervilles....
Cale: OH! That's where they lived in the Grinch!
Class: ...
Kristy: Oh.....! You mean WHO-VILLES, Cale!

*

Today a 7th grader gave a very earnest presentation about Franklin Delaware Roosevelt. She seemed so nervous I didn't have the heart to correct her... so I just tried not to giggle too loudly.

*

Also today, the kid who had researched Babe Ruth and the kid who researched Dorothea Lange discovered that...

Babe: Your guy was born in 1895? MY guy was born in 1895!
Dorothea: No way! What month was your guy born?
Babe: February.
Dorothea: Mine was May! That's really close!
Babe: What day?
Dorothea: The 26th.
Babe: Oh my god, mine's the 6th!!
Dorothea: That's SO WEIRD!!!
Babe: What are the chances???
Dorothea: I know, right? Isn't that SO WEIRD, Ms. Backes??
Class: They probably knew each other!
Class: Maybe they were in love!!!





(I didn't tell them that since we're studying the 1920s and 1930s, there's actually a pretty limited window of time in which any given adult from the 20s and 30s could have been born.....)

Laryngitis!

*ring ring*
Me: (whispering) Hello?
(silence)
Me: (croaking) Hello?
Cam: Did I wake you up?
Me: No... I have laryngitis.
Cam:
Me: I wasn't going to tell you....
Cam:
Me: I mean, I was going to tell you later this week, if I didn't get my voice back....
Cam: YOU'RE GOING TO RUIN MY WEDDING!


*



This morning one of my students handed me a broken mug with four pieces of candy in it. "Merry Christmas, Mrs. Backes!"
"Uh, thanks," I said, taking it gingerly so it wouldn't break more. Later, I overheard him telling another kid "I accidentally ate Mrs. Backes's candy! Don't tell her!" (He was sitting like five feet away. I may have laryngitis but I'm not deaf.)


But yeah, Merry Christmas! 'Tis the season of awkward student gifts!


*


Helene: Miss, what if I can't do research, because my computer is broken, because I got mad and threw it on the floor?
Me: Um... use books?
Helene: (whining) Miss Backes! But books are so ghetto!

(cue "when I was your age, we didn't have a fancy internet to do research" speech...)

Boob Jokes

S: I hate that door! It closes!
Me: (sympathetically) Yes, doors do that, don't they.
S: No, Ms. Backes! I mean, it closes LOUDLY!

*

Lindy: I saw you smile!
Me: Okay.
Lindy: I never see you smile!
Me: Never?
Lindy: Nope, never!
Me: That's not good....
Lindy: I told all my friends that I saw you smile, and they couldn't believe it!

*

E: Ms. Backes, you can sit on my desk, but just don't fart on my novel.
Me: I won't. Teachers don't fart.

*

K: Ms. Backes, don't worry, I'm not looking at your boobs, I'm just trying to read your pin!
Me: Aaah! I don't have boobs! I'm a teacher!

*

Me: (skimming a kid's novel) Wow, Taylor, that's really good!
Taylor: Really?
Me: Yeah! I love this sentence....
Taylor: I guess I should change the title then.
Me: (flipping to the front cover and reading:) THE NEXT WORST AMERICAN NOVEL. Ha! What's the first?
Taylor: Bill Clinton's book My Life
Me: And yours is second?
Taylor: That was the plan.
Me: I don't know, Taylor, there are a lot of really wretched novels out there. Like those Goosebumps books....
Taylor: Those are horrible!
Me: Exactly.
Taylor: Well, crap. Now I have to think of a new title.
Me: The 257th Worst American Novel...?

*

Principal: ...and then there was that ONE student who....blah blah blah....
Shop Teacher: ... oh yeah, did you ever have that Ortiz kid? What a nightmare!
Me: (staring intently at the marquee over the front door)
Principal: ...never was so happy as the day that kid got arrested on his 18th birthday, ha ha!
Shop Teacher: Molly, you're awfully quiet....
Me: I'm just wondering if that sign is correct. Over the October calendar? Isn't it missing a word?
Principal: (reading) October is National Breast Awareness Month.
...
Me: Because I'm thinking, in middle school, EVERY month is breast awareness month.
Principal: Ha ha ha!!


My principal may be a Good Old Boy, but he does enjoy a good boob joke.

GOD DAMNIT!

My wallet was stolen on October 25. I called Visa on October 25 to block it, which they said they did. A few days later a lady at my bank conFIRMED that it had been blocked. Today I got my credit card statement and there's another $150 on it from OCTOBER 25. So I called VISA and they said THE CARD HAD NEVER BEEN BLOCKED! What the HELL???



Everything sucks. Never have your wallet get stolen, because it is the biggest pain in the ass in the world. It's been THREE WEEKS and I still have no ATM card for my primary checking account. I've been buying gas for my 100 mile/day commute with the ATM card from my HIGH SCHOOL CHECKING ACCOUNT, opened in 1995, which had like $35 in it before I SIPHONED MONEY from my ELDERLY MOTHER'S vacation fund to get to and from my stupid job where I have to teach someone related to someone who stole my wallet, put more than $650 on my credit cards, and LAUGHED about it, while I'm STILL trying to clean up the damage THREE WEEKS LATER!!



GODDAMMIT!

Sex Ed

Me: Hey girls, what's all the drama about?
Carla: Well, Mina told Jannelle that she was a lesbian and she got someone pregnant with her finger...
Me: Oh! (two minutes of me trying not to laugh)
Lonnie: Yeah, and now Lupe is gonna beat Sondra up because of it!


Yes, notice that one girl says something about another girl and thus two entirely separate girls are in a fight. What?

Also, I saw Lupe between classes with another little girl trailing behind her, carrying her backpack and glasses for her. All I could think of was Tim in 1999: "Somebody hold my baby so I can put my cigarette out in this bitch's eyes! Hold my baby!"


In other news, I guess I always took Jerry Springer as hyperbole. I guess I was wrong.

*


Teaching personification is much harder when your students are convinced that "trees have feelings!" The sentence "The tree reconsiders its leaves" is literal, because trees have feelings! They know when you cut them, they can feel it! Um, okay, but they can't think.... No, they can feel! They're alive! They have feelings!

I always thought Topenga Lawrence was cute; I never considered how hard it would be to teach her figurative language.

*

Yesterday a little girl kicked a big gigantic boy in the shins, and he screamed "GODDAMNSHITMOTHERFUCKER!!!" The whole class was silent for a long second, staring at him, then at me, back at him, waiting for one of us to say something. Finally, I clapped my hands together. "Okay! Class dismissed!"

*

Working on figurative language:

Annabell: (reading aloud) Wear this ring to remind you that I'll always be there for you.
Annabell and Juanita: (looking at one another, in unison) AWWWWWWWW!!

(SO CUTE!)

*

Caleb: Ms. Backes, "My brother is a pig" is literal, right?
Me: Um, no. Your brother could act like a pig, but he couldn't actually be a living, snorting pig.
Caleb: What if we adopted him?
Me: If you adopted a pig? Then it would be a pet, not your brother.
Caleb: Yuh huh, then why do they always say "adopt an animal"??
Me: Again, pet, not brother.

A Lot!

4th period.

Registrar: Hi! How much will you hate me if I put another kid in your 7th period class.
Me: I already have 30!
Her:
Me: A LOT.
Her: Well....
Me: Why don't you put him in my FIRST period class, which only has THIRTEEN KIDS????
Her: Oh! First period? Good idea! (she runs off)

7th period.

New Kid: Hi, I'm in this class now.....

Things I Worry About

1. Zeke. One day he will die, and maybe I won't be able to work for a while after that. Yesterday I read a book where the cat dies, and I couldn't help but cry. Sometimes I cry just thinking about that fucking book "The 10th Good Thing About Barney" because my mom bought it for me when our golden retriever Gretchen died (ON, as it turns out, my tenth birthday), and I just think it's so sad when a family has to try to comfort one another about their dog dying. I could never be an Owens, because they had like twelve dogs die in under a decade. Like the one we saw who got hit by the horse-carcass truck, and the guy got out, looked around, and threw the dog into the back with the dead horses. And we kids were all hiding somewhere, playing either "Russian Spies" or "Steal the Neighbors' Blue Garden Ball" or "The Neighbors, who are Russian Spies, have Stolen our Blue Garden Ball and we Must Steal It Back." All three games involved hiding in the bushes and peeking down at the road. Where people hit your dogs and throw them in the horse truck.

2. The cultural purity of Tibet. China just built this super train to Lhasa, and I seriously spend a ridiculous amount of time worrying that Tibetans are now watching American Idol. It kills me.

3. The Constitution. In the words of Ali Brown, "I believe in the constitution more than in the bible!" Yes, and watching it get dismantled troubles me.

4. My hair. Why can't it always be as cute as it is in that one picture?

5. Having kids. This one could actually support its own sub-categories:

a. when I have kids I will talk to them all the time, like I talk to my dogs, only it will be worse because I will believe that they might actually understand me, which will warrant further conversation and eventually I will forget how to talk to adults.

b. what if they are crazy. Genetically, it's extremely likely.

c. what happens when the family dog dies, and suddenly I'm the one who has to buy them a copy of "The Tenth Good Thing About Barney" even though I can't stop thinking about how cute and sweet our perfect family dog was and crying about it. God.

d. I bet I'll be WAY more worried about them dying than I am about Zeke, and I literally think about Zeke dying at least once a day. The only good thing about this is that children generally have life spans of more than thirteen years. (BUT WHAT IF MINE DON'T???)

e. How can you afford to feed and clothe kids? They're so freaking expensive. We're living hand-to-mouth here just trying to feed ourselves and the dogs.

6. What if Studio 60 gets cancelled? I will be sad.

7. One day I might wake up and find that I've become totally mediocre. I've been worrying about it since I was about 14. Luckily, my sheer degree of neurosis may serve to keep me from becoming totally mediocre. On the other hand, I may end up being just another mediocre-ly neurotic person. Can't a person get a break??

8. Driving in winter. So scary, especially in New Mexico. Driving in any kind of weather, really. I swear I didn't used to be like this, but if you go off the road in Iowa, you'll just land in a fluffy, soft cornfield of safety and love. If you go off the road here, you'll probably die.

9. Global warming. I mean, what the hell can we do about it?? I did my part in the 80s, cut back on the Aqua-net, and it didn't help at all. The polar bears have less and less ice to live on every year.

10. Sam: I'm probably not crazy, because if you think you're crazy, then you're probably not, right?
Max: No.... you ARE.

Adventures in Dogtown, Pt. 2

Always, when I walk through the door, the first question on my mind is: what did the dog eat/pee on/destroy while I was gone?

I turn the light on, stand in the doorway with arms crossed, and survey the damage.

Tonight:

1: Candle, chewed on

2: Monkey, flung

3: Table, toppled

4: Wisconsin cheese curd lid, licked

5: Glass (formerly of coke), licked



And then, passed out, arms akimbo, snoring, Zeke.



Looking at him, lying in the middle of all this, I realize this all feels very familiar to me. I come from crazy, self-destructive, addictive personality folk. And here I am, once again, cleaning up after a self-destructive binge. Instead of overflowing ash trays and too many empty vodka bottles, it's cheese lids and monkeys, but still. That old adage about dogs looking like their owners? Not even close. This dog looks like his owner's soul.



I'm silent for a moment. Zeke snores and twitches a leg. I sigh, and begin to clean up his mess. It's like living with John Belushi, I tell Rory. And how can you not love him?

So Long, Farewell....

On Tuesday, Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law, suspending habeas corpus for anyone determined to be an enemy combatant.

This deeply concerns me.

In fact, I've been a little freaked out about it ever since it went zipping through congress on September 28 and 29.

Habeas corpus is a nice little law that says you have the right to know exactly why you're being locked up. And that you have the right to tell someone you didn't do that thing that you are being locked up for, and even maybe the chance to get out of prison for this thing that you didn't do. Without it, you can be grabbed off the street (or more likely, out of the airport, as in the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen INNOCENT OF ANY CRIME who was abducted by the United States Government, taken to a secret prison in Syria where he was held for 10 months and 10 days, beaten, tortured, forced to make a false confession -- and eventually RELEASED WITHOUT CHARGE) and "disappeared" without any indication of why you're being taken away.

Disappeared.... desaparacidos....that's right, we learned about that one in my "Radical Movements in 20th Century Latin America" class. Also in high school Spanish, when we watched the movie "La Historia Oficial" (every year - it was the "Stand and Deliver" of Spanish Class), about the disappeared in Argentina in the 70s and 80s, the dissidents who were forced to jump out of planes over the ocean, thus ensuring that their bodies would never be found -- the desaparacidos. The disappeared.

In the United States, we call it "extraordinary rendition."

You know what else is interesting (by which I mean terrifying) about the Military Commissions Act of 2006? There's this tricky little line in it that basically says that if the government -- aka Bush & Rumsfeld -- say you're an enemy combatant..... you ARE.

(Which reminds me of a note I once picked up off an elementary schoolyard. In the tiny, precise writing of a child, it said, "If you read this, you eat poop!" I thought, that's so clever. You can't deny eating poop, since in order to know what the allegation about you says, you must in fact admit that you did just read the note. As the note says, "IF you READ this, you eat poop," it clearly states that the only evidence needed to condemn you as a poop-eater is the mere incidence of your reading, something which once done, you cannot undo. To this day, that note remains in my mind the perfect example of cold conviction logic.)

If they say you are an enemy combatant, you ARE.

A few years ago, Bush's then-Secretary of Education announced that the largest teacher's union was a terrorist organization. According to the Military Commissions Act, the law would now say that once accused of being a terrorist organization, they ARE. Right?

Also, the MCA says that if you give monetary support to a group the president deems to be a terrorist organization, you can be considered to be an enemy combatant yourself. I wonder, in a country where the president can suspend habeas corpus without anyone blinking an eye, where the president can actively defend torture practices such as water boarding -- for which the United States prosecuted people after WWII, treating it as a war crime! -- where a group of teachers fighting for better dental plans can be called a terrorist organization -- I wonder if I shouldn't be worried about that donation I sent to KUNM earlier today. What if the president declares his personal war on the free media next? What if NPR is the next identified terrorist cell?

In the words of Keith Olbermann, "the only thing keeping you, I, or the viewer out of Gitmo is the sanity and honesty of the president of the United States."

Good luck.

Lockdowns

All the time I spend trying to teach the standards and raise my students' test scores seems completely irrelevant when we have to spend an afternoon evacuating our school and comforting scared, crying kids.



Yesterday it was TWO lockdowns for us, one lasting two hours (luckily we were watching an old Twilight Zone episode & could just hang out watching the rest of the episodes on the DVD), one where the secretary, who -- we have learned -- is not very good under pressure -- ran into my room crying and whispering loudly about a lockdown in a panicky voice, and THEN twenty minutes after the second lockdown ended, a slightly panicked-sounding principal came on the overhead telling everyone to EVACUATE THE SCHOOL IMMEDIATELY -- TAKE EVERYTHING -- GO AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE TO THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL (1/3 mile away) -- and as we're all booking it out of the school we see, across the street, that the high school is completely crawling with flashing lights, officers, dogs, cars, & even a helicopter.














What's going on, America?









Jean and Kara never mentioned the days we'd literally fear for our lives.












.

Hopscotch and Hate Speech

Yesterday:

Me: Hi, Taylor! What are you doing?
Tiny neighbor girl: I'm drawing a hopscotch, but I don't know how to make a five.
Me: Do you want help with that?
TNG: Yes, please. (she hands me the chalk)
Me: (kneeling down, drawing) First you have a straight line across, then a straight line down, and then a half-circle here. Can you do that?
TNG: I think so!
Rory's car: honk honk!
Me: Oh, I have to run! Have fun with your games!
TNG: (waving) Thank you! Thank you!!
Rory: Where were you?
Me: Sorry, I had to make a five.
Rory: ...
Me: What?
Rory: You are SUCH a teacher!

*

Arturo: Ms. Backes, me and my dad call each other homos all the time. That's okay, right?
Me: Um... no. I mean, it's still hate language.
Arturo: But why? It's not like we're hurting any queers or anything.

*

Today, diagramming sentences:

Directions: Write and diagram a sentence with a predicate noun.
Coal: (talking as he writes) You.... are... a fag. Ha ha!
Me: No. No! Do NOT use that word in my class! You should know that by now, Coal!!
Coal: Whoa, sorry. It's not that big of a deal, Ms. Backes.
Emma: Coal, she has gay friends or something. She doesn't like it.
Me: Would you think it was okay if I wrote, "You are a nigger"??
Entire Class: GASP! (suddenly silent)
Coal: Um, no.....
Me: To me, those words are the same. To me, "fag" is JUST as offensive as "nigger."
Class: ...
Me: That's why I never want to hear anyone in this class use that word, EVER.
Class: ...!

(Bell rings -- class stumbles out)


Let's hope I don't get fired over that one...... SIGH.

Adventures in Dogtown

Poor Zeke. He is known for many things, one of which is his ability/desire to eat everything in the universe. Some of the more notorious examples of this include:

-- a gallon bag full of oatmeal cookies

-- a pizza box - and then pepto bismol (proving that not only is he a garbage dump, he's also a genius!)

-- an inhaler (resulting in a trip to the emergency vet; goodbye, summer school paycheck)

-- everything in the garbage can -- and what doesn't get eaten gets spread across the floor. Wonderful.

-- cough drops (he's a fiend for them. they're like truffles to his little nose)

-- and so much more......

Today while we were at the grocery store, Zeke managed to get into the art room and devour a whole big box of ding-dongs leftover from 24-hour comic day. He ate all the chocolate ding-dongs (chocolate is very bad for dogs; however, Zeke's eaten six Baby Ruth candy bars in one day with no noticable effects), and the wrappers, and the box.

Around dinner time, we noticed that he's bloated up like a balloon or like the annoying girl in the chocolate factory. He's huge! R. gave him some doggy-pepto bismol, but it doesn't seem to be helping much. What does seem to be helping are the epic farts he's been sending out into the atmosphere. No lie: I was working in my office and I suddenly smelled the deadliest dog fart ever -- and Zeke was three rooms away, on the other side of the house, lying peacefully on the bed. Unbelievable. We're talking Ripley's Believe It Or Not, people.

I'm sure he'll be fine -- the time he ate all the oatmeal cookies it was like he didn't even notice. Now he's lying at R's feet, moaning and pooting. R's heart is far less black than my own, because he makes nice little sympathy noises and petting Zeke, whereas I just yell, "WAS THAT ZEKE? GROSS!"

But seriously, this is probably the first time in my life I've ever hoped that the dog farts more tonight. The more he toots, the better he feels......

How come you're so WEIRD?

3rd period

Door: SLAM!
Me: Who just left?
Kiley: Dorian.
Me: Hmmmmm.....
Door: SLAM!
Me: Dorian, since when do we leave the room without Molly's permission?
Dorian: (Completely Blank Look)
Me: Um... Molly being Ms. Backes. Me. You know what I mean.
Dorian: Okay... sorry miss.


*

Me: What do we know about Africa, based on the stories we read last week?
Candi: They eat weird stuff. Like bugs!
Me: Um....
Morgan: You told us! You told us they eat bugs!
Candi: They ate bugs in the story!
Me: Umm...... (Looking back to see Ali at the back of the room with a puzzled, amused expression on her face.)
Morgan: The guy went looking for bugs to eat!
Me: Oh, ANTELOPE? Are you talking about antelope???
Candi: Yeah, that's it!
Ali: (DOUBLED over in silent laughter)
Me: An antelope is not a bug, it's like a deer.
Candi: Well whatever! They eat weird stuff!!


*

Link: (to himself) If I could go anywhere in the world...... (louder) Ms. Backes, where's Three Mile Island?
Me: Um... Pennsylvania, I think.
Link: Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania. If I could go anywhere in the world, I'd go there.

*

Dakota: I was going to ask you something, Ms. Backes. What was it? What was I going to ask you?
Me: Was it, "How come you're so awesome?"
Dakota: Yes. Ms. Backes, you are an awesome teacher.
Me: Oh! Thanks! Wow, that really came out of nowhere!
Joellyn: I know what the question is, Ms. Backes! How come you're so WEIRD??

*

Anna: I like parentheses.
Me: Good.
Donny: Who said that? It's dumb.
Anna: It's not dumb. If I were in a parentheses right now, it would be like getting hugged.


*

this morning, bus duty

Me: (humming to myself) la la la....
Mr. Schmidt: What are you singing there, Backes?
Me: Um... you know in the Muppet Movie, when they first meet Rolfe, and he's singing and playing piano in a bar?
Mrs. Jones: (wide-eyed, looks slightly horrified)
Me: (half-singing) You can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em; there's something irrestibleish about 'em.....
Mrs. Jones: We really worry about you sometimes, Molly!


And sometimes **I** really miss Grinnellians. They wouldn't tell me I'm weird for singing a muppet song.


*

Crazy Teacher Next Door: I asked Andi where she wants to live when she grows up, and she said, "Where the hippies live." Then I told her that we have a hippie teacher in the school and she knew right away that it was YOU!
Me: I'm not a hippie.
CTND: Yes you are!
Me: My PARENTS were hippies. I'm a Gen-Xer or a Millenium child, depending on which cutoff date you.....
CTND: Look at your classroom! You're a hippie!
Me: Uh...
CTND: Like this. What does this say?
Me: My classroom is a safe environment for all students.
CTND: See? Hippie!
Me: I don't....
CTND: Or this! Who is this even a picture of??
Me: Rosa Parks.
CTND: Hippie!
Me: No, she was a poster girl for the civil rights movement.
CTND: Or that sign, "Hate Free Zone."
Me: So acknowledging and supporting student and global diversity in my classroom makes me a hippie?
CTND: Yes!
Me: FINE! Then I'll be a hippie!


Note that this is the same man who picked a fight with me two weeks ago about homophones, first joking about how much I love "homos" and then ranting (for days) about how "where" and "wear" are not homophones because the H should be enunciated in "where" and I am doing my students a disservice by allowing them to pronounce it incorrectly. And THEN getting a bunch of my students to go, "Hey Ms. Backes, Mr. Gooze says w-H-y, w-H-at, w-H-ere! He says it really bothers you!" Which, of course, it didn't; what bothered me was Mr. Gooze saying crazy and annoying things about me to my own students.


Sigh.

Bobby McFerrin for God in 2000!

Okay. This is the story of me and Bobby McFerrin.

First of all, I violined. I don't know if you knew that. I violined for ten years, and at the end I was still not a wonderful violiner, but I did love to play inside of an orchestra. Orchestra was a really big part of my life from 4th grade through 12th grade, and I continued to play violin regularly through much of college. I still pick it up every now and again; it's under Natty's bed in Zeke's room.

But I digress....

In 6th grade, my teacher Ms. Sanyer sponsored a contest for us orchestra kids. If you could practice at least 120 minutes a week for like six weeks, you got a prize at the end. And I did it -- and it was the one semester I ever really really improved as a player. (You'd think I would have learned, but I really didn't.) At the end of the 6 weeks, Ms. Sanyer gave the five of us who'd made it a very special prize -- a mix tape she'd made herself, with her own gorgeous handwriting on it.

I didn't listen to the tape much -- too bad, I bet there were some great things on it -- but one song I did get off it was a song off of the album "Hush," a collaboration between Bobby McFerrin and Yo Yo Ma. And I loved it. I LOVED it. Turns out my mother actually owned the real album, on CD! So I listened to it a lot in 8th and 9th grade. (Oddly, my two favorite albums in 9th grade were Hush and a collaboration between Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. No wonder I had no friends.)

In 9th grade choir, we had to do this thing called an IMP -- individual music project -- and I brought in the song "Coyote" from "Hush." At this point, I'd already been to New Mexico with my orchestra, already fallen in love with the state, already declared my intention to move there when I grew up, & so forth. "Coyote" reminded me of New Mexico, reminds me still, of the desert sky at night, the crystal of the stars, the loneliness.... Anyhow, so I turned off all the lights in the echoing choir room and made everyone lie on the floor and listen. Coyote.

In 10th grade, I wrote an autobiographical poem at the beginning of the year, in my Multicultural Lit class with Rebecca Fox-Blair and Camille Farrington. There was a line about Bobby McFerrin being some sort of god with really cool hair. My mom, never missing an opportunity for me to make a fool of myself, made me send it to Bobby McFerrin.

Can you believe that?? I haven't even thought about this in years, and I'm still embarassed, eleven years later.

Also in 10th grade we had to write our future selves letters, to be delivered in five years. The thing was, I was in a senior English class, so everyone else would be 22 or 23 when they got the letters, solidly out of college, solidly adults. I'd be.... 21. BO-ring. But I wrote it, extremely awkwardly, covered it with stickers from Ben Franklin, and gave it to my teachers to mail to me in 2001.

Somewhere along the line, my mom started a friendly relation ship with Bobby McFerrin's publicist. I guess she'd read the dorky poem I'd sent, and thought it was cute, and my mom did her "my daughter the nerd" networking, and next thing you know we have backstage passes to Bobby McFerrin in Milwaukee.

Backstage passes!

You have to understand, I never liked NKOTB or any such band. I never went through that shit. I mean, I cried when Kurt Cobain died -- we heard it on the radio in art class, in 8th grade -- but I didn't WORSHIP Cobain like I worshiped Bobby McFerrin.

So we saw him in concert in Milwaukee, and it was amazing. We'd seen him live before, at Ravinia in Chicago, but this time we MET him. And I was such a dork, I was like, "Oh my god, hi, I love you!" And he kind of laughed and said hi. My younger sister Megan was completely unimpressed; she didn't say a word but kind of nodded at him, so he pressed his hands together and bowed to her. I was too drunk on adoration to be jealous.

Over the years I saw him several times more, always wonderful. Most recently, my mother sent me tickets to see him at Popejoy for my 25th birthday. And he was wonderful again. He did the Bach Prelude/Ave Maria thing with the Popejoy audience, and it was something holy. One of those rare moments in your life when you're entirely present and you can actually look around and say, this -- this -- is a moment of grace.





And the letter? Delivered to me in the late, lazy Grinnell summer of 2001. I wandered through beds of native prairie grasses and purple conflowers to sit on a bench in the peace grove and read it. It was covered in stickers and addressed, awkwardly, to "you -- I mean me, I guess -- I mean, you know. Weird!"

And on the front of the envelope, it cheered,

BOBBY MCFERRIN FOR GOD IN 2000!

Pirates!

Homecoming 2006:

1.
(prep period)

Melusina: (jumping through my open door) Ta Daaa!! I'm a pirate!
Harriet: (walking slowly after her, sounding less than enthused) And I'm a Viking.....
Me: Ooooh! Fight!
(They do, Melusina eagerly and Harriet obligingly.)
Me: Um, Mel, shouldn't you actually be a horse. We're the Pintos, right?
Melusina: Yeah, but the theme of Homecoming is Pirates.
Me: Pirates?
Harriet: Yep.
(More student council kids wander in.)
Me: Seriously, just.... Pirates?
Shelby: Yep, Pirates! We have a treasure chest full of candy!
Me: Not, like, "Enchantment under the sea" or "Adventure on the waves" or "Moonlight Cruise"? Just.... Pirates?
Kids: (giggle)
Me: Homecoming 2006.... Pirates!
Kids: (giggle)
Shelby: It's pretty romantic, huh?
Melusina: I never even thought of that!
Me: Just... Pirates!


2.
(after school, the float)

Shelby: Hey Ms. Backes! Look! Pirates!
Me: Pirates!
Troy: We have a treasure chest! And it's full... of CANDY!
Me: That's cool, you guys.
Melusina: We're going to throw candy!
Harriet: Last year we got in trouble because someone got hit in the eye.
Shelby: (nodding wisely) That's right. This year, gentle throwing.
Jason: Here Ms. Backes, I'm going to throw you some candy!
Me: (standing like four feet away) Uh, okay!
(Jason throws candy. I catch a couple of tootsie rolls, more fall at my feet.)
Me: ... (bending over to pick up the fallen tootsie rolls)
Jason: Okay, now you throw it back at me!
Me: Why?
Jason: Because I want some candy!
Me: But you just threw it to me....!
Melusina: Ooooh, throw me a tootsie roll!
Shelby: Throw me one, Ms. Backes!
Me: No, I'm keeping one for myself!
Kids: Awwwwww.
Me: What?? You're sitting on a treasure chest -- literally! -- a treasure chest of candy!
Shelby: Pirates!



It might not come through, but this is the perfect, perfect example of why I love middle schoolers. They're so weird, and they still make me laugh.

Grinnell.....

Over Labor Day weekend, R. and I helped our friend Natalie move to Chicago, which involved driving a u-haul trailer from Albuquerque to Chicago in 24 hours, staying long enough to have dinner with friends, watch you-tube videos of people getting punched in the nuts, sleep, have breakfast with friends the next morning, restock on ice and food at Target, and hug everyone goodbye. We left Chicago around 2 on Sunday and made such good time I talked R. into stopping in Grinnell where, incidentally, Adam & Cam were for alumni soccer weekend.

Grinnell. The moment we crossed the Mississippi I was too excited not to drive. R. slept as I drove over those familiar hills, under that enormous sky. I surfed channels on the radio, but for some reason I kept finding songs that were popular when I was at Grinnell (Cher's "Believe," Madonna's "Believe") and happily pretended it was junior year again. By the time we were passing exit signs for Victor and What Cheer (not to mention Monty & Brooklyn!) I was hitting R. to show him.

Of course, I can't go back to the Grinnell I knew. The place itself is different -- the Chrystal center, East Campus, the shiny new student center, the shiny new PEC -- ad infinitum, it seems, though I only left a little more than three years ago. And the people, though they look shockingly familiar from a distance, are not the same people. I bet they're great. But they're not *my* people, not *my* Grinnellians. I'd need an Ali and a Hudson, a Jamie, Cam, Adam, a George & Dan, a Nadia and Mary, of course, a Margaret, Em, Vivek, Chris & Nick, a Paul and a Matty and a Posey, Kim, Melissa, Gus, John, Gina & Pat & Dave and.... well, you know what I mean. That collection of people, the specific population of people I love, will never be together again in exactly the same place or exactly the same way.

And yet....

Knowing that the campus itself is different, and knowing that the people, for the most part, are gone (though there's a very real chance of running into a Professor Youde or an Abby Scheckter these days), Grinnell still holds a powerful draw for me, the very trees themselves which I knew so well, the very curve of each path meandering through the wildflowers across campus. The air there seems different, even, in ways I may never be able to explain.

And I realize now, 1300 miles away once more, teaching again on the wide desert plain, that the person I was hoping most to see was myself, the girl I was six years ago, walking across the campus with notebook in hand and mischief in mind.....

The chances that I'll see her again are slim, I think, and yet the fact that I was able, even for an hour, to sit at Dairy Barn with Cam & Adam and a strawberry-banana smoothie tells me that there's a chance I can find her again as well. A chance that I'll be able, even for an hour, to step outside the suburban adult life of mine to walk alongside her as she wanders under the apple trees, wholly present and wholly herself.

And I wonder if that's not the biggest reason anyone has to go back, not in search of the place or even the people, but of yourself, the person you were. The person you know you still can be -- still are -- given an hour and enough wildflowers.

Dear Everyone....

I love you. I really do. I love you, and that's why I want to have this little talk. Consider it an intervention. Because I love you.

it's = it is

its = it, possessive

Quiz:

1. The dog licked (it's, its) balls.

2. (It's, Its) so nice of Molly to make this quiz for me.

3. This particular grammatical idiosyncrasy is tricky; (it's, its) something I've never quite gotten.

4. And now this quiz has just about outlived (it's, its) novelty.



HINT: it's = it is, its = possessive





Key: 1, its. 2, it's. 3, it's. 4, its.



How'd you do?





Wonderful. And remember, it's just because I love you so much.

Great Moments in Teaching, or: Why I'll Go Back Tomorrow

4th Period, 8th Grade Language Arts

Me: What is the MAIN IDEA of this essay (Charles Kuralt's Independence Hall)?
Class: Declaration of Independence!
Me: Okay, but what's the THESIS? What argument is the author trying to put forth?
Class: 1776! John Hancock!
Me: Um.... okay. Is the author saying that the Declaration was written by God himself, left on a rock for Thomas Jefferson to find, at which point the entire Continental Congress burst into song?
Mysterious Voices in beautiful 8 Part Harmony: Oh say does that Star Spangled Banner Still Wave....??
Class: OH MY GOD!!!
Me: Whoa! That's apropos.
Class: So... yes?
Me: What?
Class: You asked if God wrote the Declaration of Independence, and then angels started singing the Star Spangled Banner!
Me: I know, right? But seriously, the main idea of this essay is....
Dalia: The main idea is that it was HARD, that it was a struggle.
Me: YES! Very good.
Mysterious Voices: ...and the HOME of the BRAVE!!
Class: (spontaneously applauds)

So then I ran into the hallway, found the choir and their teacher, and said, "Hey, we just read an essay about the Declaration of Independence, can you come sing for us?" The choir teacher said, "Great!" and the 26 high schoolers filed into my room, some of them former students, and sang for my 8th graders. After which, of course, we applauded again. Then the choir teacher told my students some facts about music, and then I released my students early for lunch. Awesome.