Compassion Fatigue

My husband and I are both high school teachers. He teaches Keyboarding/Office Systems and Accounting. I teach English. We spend most of our commute letting (mostly) go of student issues. We carry those confrontations longer than most would think. Did we handle it the clearest way possible? Are we justified in being angry at the child in question? Is it as bizarre as we initially thought, that the child overreacted in that situation? When we have a parent send a juicy rationalization our way, are we justified in being bemused and entertained?

I understand the concern generated from rants about how we should not wish destruction upon our students even when they are less than cooperative. But here’s why we rant on blogs: We cannot rant to students or parents without risking censure. I have had students tell me what a horrible teacher they think I am and that my class is stupid. Yet I cannot tell them, in anger or otherwise, what I think of them – because it wouldn’t be helpful or professional. I have had parents use profanity-laced excuses why their darling angel only threw a chair across the room because I did not give their child my full attention at the expense of the other 35 students in class.

When we went open-eyed and admittedly idealistic into education, we did so thinking that we would teach mostly students who behaved the way we behaved in high school. But in high school in 1984, there were no cell phones or MP3 players or online grades or frequent threats of lawsuit or parents informing the school that their darling child has “intrusive impulsive disorder” – which doesn’t exist, although the student in question behaves as if it did exist and she was the poster child. We thought we would become teachers to inspire students to become life-long learners. I thought I would create poets, and novelists, and normal people who had a heightened sense of the power of words. My husband was going to give his students the knowledge that we didn't access as kids - personal finance, computer skills, and the time-saving efficient uses of computers.

So we have 180 students on the first day of school, and we find out quickly that every class has several loud, vocal students who you love to death but find no value in your class. Most students aren't malicious - a few are - but most don't realize that their behavior may be funny to their peers, but it makes my job harder everyday. Endless bathroom passes - spending more time avoiding work than it would take to complete the assignment in the first place.

So forgive us the moments where we vent our frustration and rage – we do so in the blogosphere so we don’t vent on top of our students heads…

The rants in question, even the violent ones, are nothing more than a manifestation of my own pseudo-invented disorder – Compassion Fatigue.

Long Weekend Musings

It has been an interesting month. There is nothing like the end of the school year to find out if your students have souls. Of course they do, but many times I have to remind students that if I ask them to be quiet so I can talk - they think that means continue the conversation with their friends with a quieter voice, because they are special and the rules are for those uninteresting classmates of theirs.

I remember the beast. I sat in Economics in my junior year and didn't shut up for the entire semester (my former econ. teacher shared this little tidbit with me when I started teaching). I was the Queen of the Note. I probably knew I was going to be a writing teacher from the amount of effort in notes to friends in lieu of paying attention in class.

However, I think I understand the beast in and can inuit why my students are hurt by that lack of attention. I'm sure I was also the Queen of the Stupid Question. When a teacher answers a question and someone pretending to pay attention then asks the same question - that is a stupid question.

Sigh...we are not without understanding of the beast that is the high school student. But we understand because we were once there; and that doesn't mean that it's not a huge pain in the posterior to be a teacher in the same situation...

There's some weird sociological theory afloat where we think that now, in 2007, we can break the cycle of noise, the cycle of avoidance in class...

And it hurts our little feelers too.....so be gentle with our overworked souls...and we'll be understanding with your social little souls as well...

Win Win

Primal Naked Forms of Flowers

Wordsworth once said that poetry is the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling," which should not adversely affect anyone approached with poetry. Because we all have strong feelings about life and powerful feelings about everything, the thought that I get from my students that poetry is "annoying" and "stupid" is telling me as a teacher that most people don't understand poetry and so they are dismissive.

When I share oustanding poems like "Two in the Campagna" by Robert Browning and "Song" by W.H. Auden - my students engage in the discussion about melancholy and the finite nature of humans - even if love is characterized as infinite. They giggle when I emphasize such bodice-ripping lines as "such primal naked forms of flowers, /such letting nature have it's way, /while heaven looks from it's towers!" But it's not the passion, it is the realization that their teacher just said "naked."

Billy Collins has been my main inspiration for poetry in the classroom through his Poetry 180 project through the Library of Congress and Collins' work as the former Poet Laureate of the United States. He understands that there is poetry out there that will inspire teenagers - with language that is theirs.

I am drained, being late May, having worked very hard to teach the beauty of poetry...I am certainly not feeling poetic as you read this blog...my joy in the play of language has chilled today but will be refreshed - someday.

There will be more in the future...please help me out by sending links to poems you enjoy that aren't the "dead white guys in tights" and will speak to the high school student in doubt....

Thanks and onward.

On Parrots, Rhubarb, and Washers That Email

A truly interesting April day, full of so many little miracles.
My family ventured forth for Bobcat Day. The University of California, Merced held it's (maybe) third open house ever. The school has only been in existence for a few years - last year's graduating class totalled three students. The school didn't exist until 2005 or so, and will expand a little at a time until it is the biggest UC in the California system. So to drive on campus is a little underwhelming at first - so few buildings in the middle of San Joaquin Valley farmland.
Yet it is a state of the art campus - wireless ready throughout. Every chair, table and couch in every meeting place has a decoratively hidden power outlet for your laptop. The library has laptops with the newest tablet technology and software avaliable for free check-out for four hours at a time. Classrooms have computer stations for all students. The washers and dryers in the laudromat have the capability to email or text you when your laundry is done, so you don't have to wait around for your undies to dry!

And...it's environmentally friendly too. In an effort to save all the paper that flyers and ads are printed on - the university has strategically placed TV screens around campus that display all of the ads and meeting notices and commercial issues that normally litter a campus with paper flyers. The heating and cooling for the entire campus is through heated or cooled water flowing through pipes to heat and cool rooms. Building materials are made partially from recycled paper and plastic. The lobby of the library has a cafe. It also has three sections of it's floor to ceiling windows that are set up like garage doors. When it gets hot inside and pleasant outside (lovely Cali), they just open the garage door windows and the area is transformed into an outdoor cafe. There is a small shuttle that will pick up students from Merced apartment complexes - reducing all student's need for having a car at all.

So we drive home from this experience, and arrive at our little, old house - far from state of the art, more like state of the old and cluttered. A little let-down, yet familiar...I decide to head to the store for treats. As I walk outside, I hear an odd bird squawk...I look up and there's a parrot in my cottonwood tree. I had heard from a neighbor that one was loose, but no one knew who it belonged to. So I did what most people do when faced with parrots and no experience - I put out my hand and said "pretty bird!" And lo and behold, it flew down and landed on my shoulder! And by the way, when one of these parrots screech in your ear from your shoulder - it hurts! So long story - my neighbor came out and miraculously has a sister who takes in lost birds - so our parrot friend is on the way to meeting other lost friends.

Which leads to odd miracle number three - I went to the store after the bird was saved. When I walked through the produce section, there miraculously was...wait for it......Rhubarb! Not much of a revelation for most - but I grew up growing rhubarb in our garden - many a summer night eating rhubarb-strawberry pie or rhubarb-raspberry-strawberry mush over vanilla ice cream. I can't ever find it in the local stores - and tonight when I wasn't looking for it - there it was in abundance...

Such an ordinary day in the eyes of many - but that's what makes life interesting - that miracles exist in the eyes of the beholder. What is miraculous and unique to me, isn't even noticeable to most other people on the planet.