Reflections On My First Week

This week was challenge in the new job. Zero introductions, zero training, zero orientation. Just "don't bring your lunch on Wednesday" and "here's your classroom". I was learning all my students' names, stumbling all over all sorts of procedures, trying to figure out a morass of paperwork, and trying to ignore a really, really, really horrible teacher person next door to me, who probably hates everyone, but unfortunately, that includes me.

But about the kids, since that's what you want to hear about. I've got English language learners and low literacy level native speakers. They are technically "young adults" but they come from places where they probably had adult responsibilities way too early without stable adult role models. Many of them have trouble with behavior, or trouble with their academics, or trouble with their social skills. Many of them have trouble with all three. But despite all of that, we had some moments this week.

One of the few things that I've been made aware of is that I'm supposed to confiscate all electronics that I see, but honestly if I do that I'd never get around to teaching (same thing with repeatedly waking up students). They try to keep them hidden and I try to ignore them unless it's really disruptive. Yesterday, I heard a little bit of music playing softly and then next thing I knew, first one, then two, then a whole group of my students were singing Wyclef and Mary J Blige's 911. I love that song, and their voices sounded so great. It really made me smile. They were writing, they were just also singing. There was no way I would've stopped them, we all needed a break. Making my day yesterday, one of my English language learners told me "I was a good teacher". I really don't think that I was this week, but I appreciate him telling me and even more I appreciate that he always comes to class on time and ready to work and participates even though he struggles with the language a great deal and he has to go against the flow of most of his peers to do this. He is a native Amharic speaker, from Ethiopia, so for him it's not just a new language, but also a whole new alphabet. He's been here for just a short while and in the program for a year. It will be a struggle for him, but he more than anyone makes me want to stay and stick this out. In my other class, one of my low level literacy students (actually, I think he should be in a higher level but he blew off the test and now he's stuck with me for 90 days before he can test again) has gotten me (and the class) into conversations on the following subjects this week: belief in Christ but not the Bible, ligers, street racing, redemption due to good works vs redemption due to confession, democracy, and the existence of 30 ft dolphins. He alternately cracks me up and infuriates me.

They all act so tough. They are tough. And they are really, really, young. But, then they also can be unexpectedly nurturing. There are four plants in my room (left from the previous teacher, because you all know I would kill them). The students love these plants though. They mist them, they water them, they talk to them. One of the guys even pulled over a desk and moved them all into the sun. Something about that just got to me. Maybe we'll make it though.

Moving

Many of you already know thanks to Facebook all about our news. But for us, it's still very much new. Although it's been a possibility since early April, and the offer was made several days ago, I'm still reeling from the reality that in a few short months everything is changing for us.

Jason accepted a job with Our Lady Of The Elms College, also known as Elms College, or Elms today. We need to be in Massachusetts by late August and classes start September 1st. There's a lot to do. While we are still half packed from our move to my parents over a year and a half ago, we'll need to go through those boxes (and all the stuff upstairs) and whittle down our possessions. We've got to find someplace to live, and someone to move all of our stuff - I don't think either Jason or I are up to driving a fully loaded truck half-way across our big country. Hardest of all, we've got to say goodbye to dear friends and family who are right here and who've been hoping that we would remain here, or at least somewhere in the mid-west.

I'm pretty sure Elms will be a good fit for Jason. I'm hoping that it will be a good fit for Nora and I too. Time will tell. In the next couple of months, we'll be busy - but not too busy for all of you. Wish us luck!

My World Is Changing

I've been hearing about Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods for a while now, and I finally got around to buying it this summer when we were in Arkansas. But it wasn't until I committed to go to a book discussion about it for work that i finally got around to reading it. I cracked the book yesterday and I'm almost finished - unheard of for me and non-fiction, which usually takes me weeks to finish - and now I can't stop talking about it. This book broke something open in me, and now I'm so emotional about it, I'm a mess, which is sort of a problem since I have to speak about it rationally tomorrow. Anyway to organize my thoughts, this is why I like it:

1. Louv could have gone a completely different way with the tone of this book, when I first started reading, I immediately bristled wondering if I was going to feel like a miserable parent for not taking Nora backwoods camping at the age of two. But he didn't. Yes, he clearly does stuff like this with his kids, but really what he's advocating is for parents to ensure that kids get out of the house and into a natural setting everyday. This could mean trips to the park, but it can also mean growing a seed in a dixie cup or watching the birds land on the railing. In one of the best passages of the book, Louv reassures us that making the reconnection is possible, that it doesn't have to be a giant task, and he gives us permission to have fun and to learn things too:

" But before I take you on this hike, let me say something about the pressures that parents endure. Simply put, many of us must overcome the belief that something isn't worth doing with our kids unless we do it right. If getting our kids out into nature is a search for perfection, or is one more chore, then the belief in perfection and the chore defeats the joy. It's a good thing to learn more about nature in order to share this knowledge with children; it's even better if the adult and child learn about nature together. And it's a lot more fun."

2. He makes a really strong case for our need for Nature for a. mental health b. cognitive learning c. physical health d. the creative process. Our disconnect from nature is really messing us up on all four of these fronts and ruining the earth for everything else on top of it. Really that's it in a nutshell, but this book is so much more.

3. This book should be required reading for parents, educators and policy makers for Chapter 8 - the section on ADHD and the benefits of being in nature to combat it- alone. If you don't read any other part of this book, read that chapter, it is incredibly powerful.

4. He puts the responsibility for making our re-connection to nature on a multiple shoulders (well actually everyone) but he doesn't hang parents or teachers out to dry by saying its all their fault or that they are the ones who can fix this. He takes on universities, environmental groups, government, corporations,educators, parents and everyday folks and gives extremely sound advice about how to make this work. i.e.: this book doesn't just tell you there's this huge society wide problem that is destroying us, but it also gives ideas on how to fix it and points to places where folks are doing it right. Louv also cites lots of research to back up his claims but he also tells us where no one is doing any research, or not enough research, or the research is faulty to support his arguments to encourage more work to be done.

5. This book is readable. It doesn't overwhelm you with statistics (although there are plenty), it doesn't feel like you are being lectured, it's well set up and most of all it is extremely interesting, not just for parents and not just for educators and not just for green folks (although I am all three of those).

So, please check the book out. You can borrow it from me or buy your own copy or go to the library. Whatever it takes. If you want the readers condensed version check out the link to the Orion magazine article he wrote (it's where you will go if you click on his name above). Maybe you won't have the epiphany-revealing, earth-shattering, emotional reaction to it that I have, but maybe you'll like it anyway and maybe it will convince you to go take a walk in the woods. I hope so.

On The Road Again

Hmm, it feels like I'm never here anymore.  Last week I went to the TESOL conference in Denver.  It was really a very good conference.  As well as being quite big.  I think what I enjoyed most about it was that it was an unusual cross-section of academic and practitioner.  Usually conferences are one or the other, this one had both with the added benefit of actually thinking about policy at the same time.  It was sort of nice for folks like me who actually enjoyed taking classes at college and who sort of miss talking about theory and the big picture, as opposed to just getting some strategies to use in the classroom on Monday.  I also loved that it had social justice issues right at the forefront, which is sort of an unusual thing at a literacy-related conferences, where social justice issues might be present, but usually shunted off to the side.   It being more front and center here  is probably because of it's international focus, which was another thing I liked about it.  Oh yeah, and there was a blizzard too.   

This week I'm off to another conference, presenting and exhibiting (that sounds so wrong), but this time I'm going to Southern Missouri, specifically the Lake of the Ozarks.  I'm not really a fan, although, most of Missouri seems to think that it's the cats pajamas.  We are, of course at the Tan Tar A, which is where just about every Missouri conference having to do with Education ever is held, unless one of the two cities convinces the rest of the state to come their direction.  It is an odd place.  Like a southern shotgun house that someone just kept adding on to, the Tan Tar A has labyrinth of buildings that only sort of connect, elevators  that don't stop at every floor,  and passageways that dead end making you exit and run around the building to resume your course.  I dread going there, but then again, I sort of like the place's oddness juxtaposed with it's unrelenting marketing that they are all about FUN and FAMILY.  I won't being doing the water park, or the golf, or the spa  and to the outlet mall (well, maybe),although that's what children, men and women are supposed to do at resorts, or maybe just this resort - in that order - check out the billboards. The irony of it being a FUN, FAMILY VACATION, where none of you actually spend time with each other or even see each other, is sort of lost on Tan Tar A.   In any case, I will be sans family,  stuck in a big exhibit hall talking about parental involvement and why it's more than asking the parents of the "good kids" to come in and decorate the bulletin board, to a potentially hostile audience. Good times.  Let's hope spring is back to stay, because I really want to get home on Saturday evening.