Christmas, racism, pain-- it's been a very strange 2 weeks. By Catherine on 12/26/2007 10:01:00 AM
So, yesterday was Christmas, this very warm, almost-springlike day. It was a nice change from last week's stormy gray skies, always threatening to either downpour or bury us in heavy wet snow. I had my tonsils out a week ago today, and until yesterday I didn't eat anything besides ice chips and water. I get grumpy when I'm hungry, and the gray weather wasn't helping. It's been really difficult to stay positive when all you can do is sleep, take painkillers, and drink water. I feel much better, so here's a comprehensive post chronicling the last two weeks, starting with work last week, when I got smacked by a student.When I say smacked, I don't mean the kid gave me a bloody nose, or even hurt me at all... She whacked my hand away from her project out of frustration. But that one thing, of course, threw the classroom into chaos, with the toughest, most bad kid's jaw literally dropped in shock. That was Thursday, not an easy day. I was really upset, because I know she wasn't being mean, but by the same token she needed to understand that her reaction was entirely inappropriate.
Then on Friday, a student of mine destroyed something of mine. Not a big thing, but I was upset by the fact that he did it and then blamed it on his friend. It just shows an immaturity that is disconcerting in a 15 year-old. After dealing with that, I checked my work email to find out that a student's dad passed away unexpectedly. There was no service, no wake-- no way to show support until after my scheduled surgery, which made it impossible to go and give him a hug.
Work stress followed me into the weekend, and then stress and fear about getting my tonsils out. I wasn't scared about the procedure itself, but rather about afterward, because, I admit, I'm a wimp. I was terrified of "the worst sore throat you've ever had multiplied by 10" (thanks, Mom) and the fact that the doctor told me my pain meds probably wouldn't help that much. I managed to work myself into an intolerable ball of stress over this, only to discover afterward that it wasn't half as bad as I'd prepared myself for. Yes, I was exhausted and slept for the first four days basically straight, but come to find out it's not that bad. I still can't eat, which is really the only thing bumming me out at the moment. It's not even pain so much as being really swollen, and things get stuck behind my soft palate.
Let's move on, I'm tired of talking about my pathetic-ness. We got some bad news from a friend on 12/23, and it kind of sobered the Christmas spirit out here in the 'burbs. She knows where I am if she needs me... <3
So then 12/24 we traveled to my dad's and that's where I encountered the racism, from the most unlikely of sources. I won't get into it here, you can ask me about the whole story.
And now I'm exhausted and want to rest, but I'm gonna try really hard to get something done around here. Maybe eat. We'll see. :)
Labels: anger, Chistmas, family, STRESSSTRESSSTRESS
On modifying tests, and the Revolutionary War (against Special Education) By Catherine on 10/02/2007 07:32:00 PM
So, today I modified three exams from teachers on the Revolutionary War. There's a couple of versions to each, so I spend a good chunk of today cutting and pasting from their original document files and trying to figure out what's most important to retain. For example, I decided that being able to define what "republic" means as more important than what year Cornwallis was defeated. (It was 1781, if you're keeping track.) These tests were huuuge, upwards of 100 questions each, which for students like mine is quite a lot more than they can handle, both mentally and emotionally.I can so vividly remember sitting in front of tests like that and feeling so hopelessly lost and overwhelmed I could barely focus. And I was considered "bright" or whatever. Maybe less bright than OCD. I am glad that I understand enough about certain specific learning disabilities that I am able to pare it down to the bare essentials for the students that need it. I worry though, that I'm cutting out too much. When will we make it so easy that we're no longer learning? Providing social and emotional support to students has been the job of the teacher for as many years as education has existed, though it has morphed from a Church-based curriculum to one based on the Platonic arts: language, literature, mathematics, and science. I can honestly say I am about leveling the playing field for some students, but unfortunately it may have gone too far for me, and I almost can't agree anymore.
I'm interested to find out some of the parents' stances, however, because I feel like it's slightly dishonest to say that some Special Ed programs don't push kids through the system. I disagree entirely with the whole premise of passing through on the minimum, but increasingly it feels like that is how we're expected to deal with the issues that arise. It's much easier to modify a test beyond recognition than to pay for two extra years of special ed services through the state Department of Education. I'm not saying at all that this breakdown is in any way the fault of the kids, but the parents and the system will eventually have to answer to someone. What
happens when the student is crushed because he has been passing along all these years, and then doesn't get into college because no one was honest with him about his abilities?
The Wall Street Journal did a piece on Special Ed a while back, and interviewed with a pair of parents who took the opposite stance as many of those I've worked with personally: they didn't want their child's unearned diploma:
"I felt proud because he had worked so hard," says Michael's
mother, Beverly, her voice breaking. "You don't want to take that away from him.
But you knew it wasn't real. What's he going to do in the future? Will he be
able to go to college and get a job?"
The Bredemeyers represent a new voice in special
education: parents disappointed not because their children are failing, but
because they're passing without learning. These families complain that schools
give their children an easy academic ride through regular-education classes,
undermining a new era of higher expectations for the 14% of U.S. students
who are in special education.
No one's denying that scores on standardized tests have gone up in the past nine years since the MCAS was developed, and in the past six since NCLB was instituted. But we're lying to students, we're lying to parents, and we're lying to ourselves as educators if we think that SpEd is the catch-all for students with disabilities. Inclusion, yes. Putting your child in a class where he or she clearly cannot grasp the materials presented in any way, let alone with enough understanding to have any real degree of retention, is a big, ugly lie. Providing a scribe or someone to read aloud to a child in study is he or she has a language-based learning disability? Sure! Sounds great. But passing students who put in minimal effort because they too have learned to dupe the oh-so-PC system is not:
"Mardys Leeper and Carol Merrill, former teachers at West Philadelphia High School in Pennsylvania, say a special-education administrator there ordered them to pass special-education students. Ms. Leeper says she made concessions for students with disabilities, such as letting them write shorter essays or copy paragraphs she wrote onto a word processor rather than composing their own. But when those students didn't make an effort, or skipped class, both teachers say they sometimes sought to fail them -- only to have the administrator insist on passing grades. The reason they were given: Students had met the goals of their federally mandated individual education plans, IEPs, spelling out goals and services for each special-education student."
Last year, with seniors, I saw this a lot. Not necessarily from the administration (see, NG, I don't blame you, I blame the system) but from teachers who were either so frustrated or felt so terrible for the student that they allowed a pass undeservedly. Something glaring that comes to mind is when we discovered at the end of the year that one girl was 5 credits shy of graduation. Miraculously, two days later she walked with her class: someone had changed a grade from her sophomore year to reflect passing (and therefore credit). But she didn't earn it. In fact, I don't think she or her parents ever even knew that this happened.
I'm having a crisis of faith-- I want my work to be meaningful, but I also want it to be honest. I wonder what I have to do to reconcile these issues, which become more disheartening for me every day, for the rest of the year until I get my own classroom, out of the realm of Special Education. That doesn't mean the problem goes away-- no, in fact I daresay it's even more difficult for academic teachers, because they're constantly strapped with providing accommodations that are either unnecessary or quite inconvenient. I guess I'll find out. I love being a teacher, despite my earlier comments, and I have hope that somehow I'll figure out how to make a difference in spite of the challenges teachers are faced with everyday.
{Please ignore my earlier rant, I was entirely too frustrated with all of the issues I've since brought up here to think clearly and not sound like a prima donna. You love me, right? RIGHT? Oh, God, rejection! No!}
Labels: dreams, education, frustrations, learning, modifications, politics, revolutionary war, school, special ed, STRESSSTRESSSTRESS, unfunny, wall street journal, working through the block
It's okay, I think the joke's on me (or how I received e-mail from a creep) By Catherine on 9/29/2007 11:22:00 PM
I am an oxymoron, and those who know me personally are acutely aware of it.What I mean is, I'm an introverted-extrovert. I love blogging, hate bars. I love dinner parties, hate frat parties. I'm addicted to the internet, but no, I do not want to meet up. Ever. The first night I met her, I was told by my dear friend's significant other that I am "too nice." But then I drank wine and went on a sarcastic tirade. I am guardedly-open (sans shiraz). I am an oxymoron.
The point is, I am stepping outside the Catherine-bubble and doing my first real poetry reading tomorrow evening. I selected three decent poems, and I am gonna do it. It's ten minutes of my life, and if I don't try it now I might not get the chance again. I picked two quite light-hearted pieces and a more serious one, but my market is children. And that's what y'all are gonna get. I'm rather proud, because I never used to have sage fright (there's pictures somewhere of me as Meg from Damn Yankees and as a stripper in Guys and Dolls-- no, not appearing on Flickr) but now, I'm nervous.
My first attempt at overstepping my comfort-line was to join the French-speakers MeetUp in my area, but that didn't go so well. I'll admit, I joined in a moment of weakness. I was feeling lonely, having just moved to these God-forsaken suburbs from Amherst, which is a kind of lasting intellectual fairytale in my mind. I majored in French, and specialize now in Language Arts in my classroom. I loves me the Frenchies. (And Africa, but, hello, another post for another day! Oh, how I wish Joseph Conrad were alive and writing...) DIGRESSION. See the pattern? ADD!
I joined the French MeetUp in my most pathetic moment, and then I blew them off. I just. Never. Went. The first few were house parties and brunches, and I could always find a reason to be busy. Until The Creep e-mailed me.
The Creep blindsided me on a weeknight, a few days before the monthly brunch at Panera, demanding WHY hadn't I come to any meetings and didn't I know that the organizer pays $75 per year to the site?! (interrobang! ADD.) I almost didn't dignify him with a response, but I'd be lying if I told you I was that mature. My reply was the e-mail equivalent of the bird, cause, who monitors that shit? And who cares?
Apparently MeetUp.com is the same thing as EngagedtoBeMarried.com. I was not aware. But The Creep didn't care though, and he obviously didn't get it, because he proceeded to reciprocate with how lonely he was and did I want to call him? His number is 1-800-BEGGIN-4-LUV. Three pages worth of this garbage. I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. The only thing that stopped me from posting the whole sordid affair was the fact that gmail deletes Trash mail after 30 days, and this happened in June. And I realized that my bubble is safe. From creeps.
Of course, that didn't exactly make me want to start going. In fact, it had the opposite effect, and made me think that I was not, and will never be that lonely. But again with the digression.
I decided not to venture out again, at least until this current opportunity popped up. This seems somewhat less... Full of foreboding, unlike the last one. I can read three poems, and if I totally embarrass myself then whatever, cause I just disproved my own hermit-ness. And I don't have to see them ever again. And I can adopt a pseudonym when I publish my bestselling book.
And I can rationalize anything. Thanks, Mr. Creep, you're my hero.
Check out:
MeetUp.com
Labels: creeps, I have ADD, interrobang, joseph conrad, librivox, meetup, NEWS series, poetry, STRESSSTRESSSTRESS, writing
De-Cluttering: Advice Needed OR, My Titles for Everything are Far. Too. Long. By Catherine on 9/18/2007 11:10:00 AM
Something that has been on my mind a lot lately is the amount of clutter I've accumulated in the past six or so years. It seems like every Christmas gift, every birthday present, every token, in general, was the transportable throwaway type, which never, in actuality, gets thrown away. When you live in a dorm room 9 months out of the year, you're not likely to accumulate useful things like standing lamps and matching bedroom furniture, you're far more likely to receive things like teddy bears, shower caddies, and teeny tiny tables-- like 4 of them. Example: I recently got rid of a lamp I got for $10 at Linens and Things before my freshman year at UMass-- about a year after the base broke and it stood at a foolish angle. But I don't have another lamp!In the past two years, in light of The Real World, I've received many useful, lovely, and thoughtful gifts (like my gorgeous kitchen table, pots and pans, and a Pyrex set) but on top of things that have little or no use, those things become enmeshed in the rest of the clutter, making it much much harder for me to make actual use of them. I'm still in college-mode: I am more likely to buy three small things at Target than wait a few weeks and get one quality item at Pier One. Same with clothes: you're much more likely to see me drop $50 on 10 things at Wal-Mart than $50 on a nice pair of pants from J. Crew. But you'll still hear me complain when the crappy stuff falls apart and looks awful.
This weekend marks The Great Cleanup of 2007. So far, I've got a huge list of what needs to be done, and I'm daunted by the task. I'd like to ask for help, but I think-- no I know-- that I'll be a big ball of stress while doing it and freak everyone out. Luckily, my town trash collection takes pretty much everything, aside from appliances which might contain CFCs, like refrigerators, so I don't need to worry too much about getting rid of everything.
I can already feel how emotional this is going to be. I hate throwing things out, and I feel an intense connection to a lot of my stuff, almost unhealthily so. I know I'll never wear that see-through nylon shirt with the shoulder-holes, but I got it in France. I know I'll likely never again be a size 4 and should donate my suit, but I can't. I don't need to keep all those tupperware lids, as their mates were lost long ago. I mean, it took me 5 years to throw out a box full of notes from The Almost in high school... I didn't even open it, I just threw the whole thing in the trash, because I knew if I looked I'd keep it.
So, I'm gonna share my list and hope that people comment on what makes de-cluttering easier for them. I got some hot tips from Martha Stewart and Unclutterer.com-- please feel free to leave tips, advice, moral support... And if you're in the neighborhood, stop by and help! Adam and I will totally need it. :)
The List of Incredibly Daunting Future Cleanliness-Inspiring Weekend Cleanup 2007
- Get rid of the broken bureaus and non-functioning bookshelf.
- Get rid of duplicate pots and pans.
- Mate the tupperware and scrap the halvsies.
- Throw out old kitchen utensils and donate multiples of such. We don't need 4 potato peelers and 6 salt shakers.
- Put stuff we don't use often in the big cabinet over the fridge, known at home as "The Big Deep Cabinet of Catherine Can't Reach Anything."
- Donate all non-fitting, non-stylish, non-worn clothes to the Salvation Army.
- Shred all the accumulated mail (I will take a picture and post the truly scary amount there is.)
- Throw out all "art supplies" that aren't actually art supplies but rather stuff I've packratted because I think it will look cool if I someday, maybe, decoupage it. This includes wine bottles, tins, poster tubes, and all other manner of crap. Also deserving of a photo.
- Throw out stupid-looking knickknacks and burned down candles.
- Throw out all the crap from when we moved that we didn't know what to do with and stashed in the back room.
- Stash stuff we DO need but need to pack away in the back room: Christmas ornaments/tree stand, extra china. Using the back room for storage? NOVEL.
- Get rid of all manner of extra toiletries. My family thinks I smell bad or something, because every Christmas I get a basket full of bathroom crap in scents like Lover's Musk and Cloying Magnolia and Underage Stripper's Delight. I'll stick with my No. 5, thanks.
- Get Adam to throw out HIS crap. This list mostly applies to what is mine or shared.
Advice? Please?
Labels: cleanup, clutter, STRESSSTRESSSTRESS