Mommy, why would white people want to let Black people be equal? And other stories

So, my kids are learning a fair bit about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as they should.

Their limited world experience and faint grasp on big-picture ideas, however, combined with curriculum that could probably be improved, has thrown them for a bit of a loop.

Last week, one of my kids came home talking about this amazing "lesson" their teacher had them learn.

"Mommy, he split the class up in half, and he put us in two groups, then he told one group we were going to have a party, and he told the other group they couldn't come. They had to sit in another classroom. I was in the party group. I was sad because my friend was in the not party group. I was almost crying. But then he didn't do it, mommy. He didn't do it. He told us it was just a lesson."

Now, something sat funny with me about this lesson, but coming from my white-person frame of reference, I couldn't put a finger on what it was. So, we talked about what the lesson was supposed to be, and how unfair that would have been, and we applied it to the political, social and cultural backdrop of that time in history.

A wonderfully patient woman online soon explained to me why this lesson is off-base.

The approach is incredibly white-centric as it assumes that all the children in the class need to learn the lesson of discrimination through a cutesy classroom activity. It assumes that all children in the class don't already know how this might feel. Meanwhile, children of color already experience this on a daily basis throughout their lives, and don't need to play-act it to get an idea of what discrimination could possibly be about. And it's certainly not about parties.

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Flash forward to today when my children were talking to each other about how funny Dr. King's voice sounded during his famous speech. I cut in to explain that he spoke fervently to evoke passion in his listeners and get support for the very important action he was trying to help facilitate.

We talked about how brave he and others were for standing up to the status quo without any power to do so, and without any guarantee of their safety. We talked about how very important it was to stand up for equality for all people, no matter where we fell on that spectrum.

Then one of my daughters comes out with this, after sitting silently for a moment, thinking it all over.

"Mama, why would the white people then want to give equality to the Black people? You know, since they had it all? They would want to keep it."

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So, that was a really insightful and legitimate question. I answered with a grandiose speech about how all people were very important and the white people who were kind and good and thoughtful and smart knew that it was wrong to treat other people like they were. And they wanted to give equality because it was the right thing to do, and we must always do the right thing.

Another brief silence.

Then this:

"But, mama, you always tell us that life isn't fair, and that we can't make it fair."

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And, man, can I just tell you I am not smart enough to be a parent?

I thought a while about how to simplify the different between fairness on an individual level and equality on an institutional level.

Eventually I settled on telling her that even though life wasn't fair in many, many things, it was up to us every day to try to make it more fair for those around us who had it harder. And I threw in a few "plus, that's a totally different thing, it's just the words are the same," for good measure.

The world is hard. Concepts are hard. The fact that we still live in a world where discrimination, inequality and oppression exist is hardest of all.

Reasons my kids couldn't possibly go to sleep before 10 p.m.

The girls slept late this morning because of the holiday. And tomorrow, we're up at 6:30 a.m. again. Do they care? Noooooo. They do not. They do not care that tomorrow at 7:15, I'm going to be tearing my hair out trying to hurry them up, putting on their shoes they suddenly can't find even though I laid them out tonight, combing their hair in a frenzy as they dramatically scream in fake pain, and force feeding them cereal via high-powered watergun. OPEN YOUR MOUTHS.

No, they do not care.

Here are the reasons they absolutely couldn't possibly have been asleep before 10 p.m. tonight:

1) They had to play a game of balloon volleyball in the living room because daddy told them they could.

2) The last point in that volleyball game was super contentious it totally DID OR DID NOT touch the couch before going over to the other side. This required mental replays, various explanations, three near tantrums, and seeking out a neutral party to decide for them. (The decision, by the way, was GO TO BED).

3) They had to finish their chocolate milk that they didn't even like at dinner time.

4) They NEEDED dessert. They were so so so so so so so so so hungry. Even though it took them nearly ninety minutes to eat dinner. Can't argue with the stomach, I guess.

5) They couldn't tell if they needed to go number two or not.

6) Brushing teeth is harrrrrrrrd.

7) They wanted to change their underwear randomly.

8) They needed to talk in bed. They had things they forgot to discuss in the 16 hours they were awake and together apparently.

9) They were suddenly so itchy. They needed to turn the lights on to examine their itchiness and call me in to check it. (It was invisible, by the way.)

10) They needed more water. They drank it all. For the first time in six months.

11) Wait, was that a ghost, mom?

12) Well, if it's the dishwasher, it's too loud. They can't sleep with the dishwasher on. You know, like they did last night. Or the night before.

13) They needed the closet door shut. But they needed it shut by a grownup. Just in case.


So, like, tomorrow, they'd better be walking to school before I even wake their little butts up. Because GO TO SLEEP.

Birthday parties in the modern age

My kids are turning seven next Monday, and to celebrate, I'm throwing them a party at a local bowling alley on Saturday.

Now, when I was a kid, we all still lived close to our extended family, so my network of aunts, uncles and cousins was virtually limitless. Because of that, my mother had extra hands on board, and extra friends of friends and siblings to help undertake this task. And at the very least, SOMEONE would show up to my party because they were related and their mom brought them.

But it never got to that point because when I was growing up, the Internet wasn't a thing. In order for my friends to get together, my parents had to make an effort to get to know their parents, and they did. But it was also easier because everyone was in the same boat. Communities had to get to know each other. They were there for life. Other parents stuck at the tee-ball game would chat to you because they didn't have smart phones and their network of friends far away in the computer. They exchanged phone numbers. We had a post-it note with my friends' number on it in our cabinet for 20 years, no lie. And it wasn't weird to go out and ask for the numbers and then use them.

When my kids were in kindergarten, I went to a parent-teacher conference night and basically attacked other parents for their phone numbers. And I never used but a few of those numbers because the parents and I never had cause to interact again, and honestly, I don't even remember their names. I should add that no one has asked for my number. It's just not something that's done anymore. I've never gotten a call from a parent asking my kids to come over to play--a mainstay of my own childhood.

And so, I find myself here. Just a few days before this party. With three kids coming.

I sent out a mass email to the 53 kids in my kids' classes last year. But no one knows who I am. No one even probably remembers who my kids are. Friendships are...different these days. I don't know anyone's address so I couldn't send cute invitations in the mail. When the bowling alley gave me a stack of invitations, I was like, um. I can't use these. I can't call to confirm or make this in any way personal because I simply do not know any of these people. It's only by luck that the three kids are coming at all, their parents probably happy to have an afternoon off for any reason, and my being a fellow parent at our elementary school official enough for it to be okay.

I want to break out of this for my kids and for their social lives, but I'm not quite sure how to do it. Even when I have in past invited children to play, the parents have stayed at my house, probably because they don't know me because we never have an opportunity to speak. At least not one that we take. I'd probably have been better off introducing myself as "the woman you see walking with twins behind her every school morning" because that's how people actually know me. I'm serious. I'll get stopped on the street, in the gym, even at a restaurant or bar with "are you the woman who walks your twins to school every day?" This is how far we've wandered, people.

I have to send another mass email out today to the parents who didn't respond, meaning, I have to go through and match email responses to email addresses and delete those who responded from the second mailing because I do not know these parents' names. It's all very sad and embarrassing.

Right now, though, we do have six kids coming, which is plenty for me.

This coming school year, I will do my best to promote at least acquaintanceship with other parents. I will try to learn about at least four families and their children. I will reach out, at least a little, and hope against hope that that is reciprocated. My kids deserve better than this online life. Even if it's very hard for me to try.

A privileged personal history of gay rights activism

When I was in high school in the late 1990s, a group of amazing students formed a club one day. They called it the GSA, or the Gay-Straight Alliance. Smalltown, Connecticut, offered an incredibly sheltered existence to all of us, back then. I went to school with literally fewer than 400 students in the 9-12 grade and graduated with something like 98 other kids. And they all looked and behaved just like me. Anyone who behaved even slightly differently, therefore, was subject to scrutiny and side-eye.

Now, we were fairly nice kids, and while a few of my more bullied friends could tell you war stories from that school that would make you shiver, from where I sat in seventh period World Cultures, we all seemed pretty open, honest, and kind. There was the immature name-calling every once in a while, the hallway fist fight once in a blue moon, a few people everyone whispered about for one reason or another. Many of us (and really I can only speak for myself, but I'm guessing many of us) did not understand the reality of oppression, of marginalization, because it truly did not affect us. We were white, straight, well off monetarily, and children. As such, we threw around the phrase "that's gay" very easily, and I distinctly remember at least twice when separate students were made to feel supremely uncomfortable because someone started a rumor that "they were gay." I have no idea how it must have felt to have to walk around with that label, true or not, particularly when they had not yet made a personal choice to share that private information. I do know that I saw red faces, tears, and students drawing into themselves. As if being gay were the absolute worst. Again, I say we didn't know any better, but someone did. Where were the adults?

All this to say my alliance with progressive causes did not start until well after I left high school, and even college. I literally did not understand oppression. I had no concept of it. So when the GSA came along, and quite a few of my friends were in it, I would hang out with them after school every once in a while, when it was convenient to me, mostly to chat with my friends. It may as well have been a sewing circle, or a club for frisbee golf for all I cared or paid attention, but it did spark just a sliver of awareness in me personally, that there was a group of people who felt ostracized enough that they needed a group to support them. And my childhood self did like the idea of equality. Even then I thought that people were people and we should all just let them be and let them love and treat them fairly. I just also thought that they were already treated pretty fairly. I truly had no idea. I was busy reading MacBeth and studying Elementary Functions and playing soccer, and singing in choir, and heading up the Environmental Team. I figured my life was full and complete and did not for one moment consider how incredibly selfish it was.

It's important to note that I didn't even think I knew any LGBT people. I really figured that every single time something like that was brought up, it was mean-spirited talk meant to segregate a person and find something not-normal about them so that they would be made fun of for like a week. I was a fairly smart kid...but I never put two and two together that if I thought being gay or a lesbian or bisexual or transgender was a huge insult meant to wreak havoc on teenage self-esteems, then perhaps I was part of the problem, even though I thought I was doing my diligent part by saying things like, "no, they're not!" I mean, really? So very little I understood in those days.

Turns out, at least two people I knew there were transgender, and many more gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, queer, or without sexual orientation label, per their preference. And that it was okay for them to identify that way. That it wasn't necessarily a source of ridicule, but actually a legitimate identity to be protected, to be held sacred, much like my straight, white life was never questioned. I wish I had known that, then. I wish those students had been able to say with confidence, this is who I am, and I wish I, as a straight person, had known that the correct answer wasn't to immediately thrust the person back into "normality" but to venture to understand what life must be like having to hide from your earliest years. I wish I had known that a better answer than "no, they're not!" would have been, "and what the hell is wrong with that?"

But I didn't know. And for that I am sorry. Regardless, all this is to say that yesterday marked an official turning point in the nation, and the high school friends I still keep in touch with have grown in leaps and bounds since 1996, everyone celebrating, everyone understanding what an enormous weight has been lifted now that our government agrees that love is love and we should not police which gender people have the right to fall in love with.

This entry has been personal and whiny in the face of tremendous societal change for a reason, and that is to say this:

One of the collateral victories in this fight is that when my kids go to high school, they will already know that LGBT people are not a segregated flock of people there only to provide a petty comparison to what straight kids don't want to be. I've taught them from birth that "girls can marry girls and boys can marry boys" and now that we're living in Florida, I can tell you that they came home from kindergarten and first grade at least once a month telling me that so-and-so said I was a liar, or that so-and-so's mom said I was totally wrong and what I said was a sin.

That's not really going to happen anymore in a way I cannot defend. As they grow, I can point to this decision, and guide them in the knowledge that people who identify as LGBT are not only okay, but amazing because they fought for their rights and actually won a battle in our lifetime. When my kids go to high school, "gay" won't be used as an insult. It won't be interchangeable with "stupid" or "ridiculous" or "something I really fucking dislike right now". And that might be a very small thing, but a very good thing. And maybe it's not so small after all.

My children will grow up in a world where more people are treated as equals in the eyes of the law regardless of their personal choice of who to be and who to love. And if they decide they are part of the LGBT community, those who have fought together so hard in my lifetime while I was busy failing Home Economics have paved the way for them, not only personally, but legally, and rights will be afforded them that have been kept away from this group for so long. And I am eternally grateful.

Congratulations, everyone, and thank you. You did it. #lovewins

Ask a Teacher: What's the deal with summer reading?

The school year is still underway for much of the country, but most schools and teachers are beginning to plan for next year. For a lot of students, that means it's time to think about summer reading. With the looming worry of summer work, some parents want to know what's the deal with summer reading? Is it beneficial? Do we even have to do it?

Overall, summer reading is a benefit to most students. Over summer, many students experience a learning loss as they don't use skills they were previously practicing daily. For students who are already struggling with reading, these losses can set students back even further. By encouraging students to continue reading over the summer, basic reading skills like inferencing can be practiced at home.

It's important for summer reading assignments to be age appropriate and as stress-free as possible for both parents and kids. If the assigned program is beginning to make your child say things like "I hate reading" it might be time to take a step back. Summer reading should involve a lot of choice for students at every age. The goal is to keep students reading and interested in reading. If your child only wants to read informational books, let them. Summer reading can help build a love of reading in your child.

As students get older, they should be assigned to read less books. The idea in the younger grades is that you are reading with your child. As kids get older, they should read more independently and read longer texts. Asking for a small project over summer is fine, but if it's taking more than a few days to complete, again it might be time to take a step back.

Be open and honest with your child's teacher when you return from summer. If you didn't read the number of books you were supposed to, don't lie about it. Talk to the teacher and explain that your child was struggling and beginning to dislike reading, so you took a step back. Openly lying doesn't alert your child's teacher to information that could possibly help your child during the school year. Also, if your child knows that you lied to their teacher, that can undermine the teacher.

Try not to stress about summer reading. It is only meant to benefit your child and shouldn't be seen as a major assessment of your child's skills or your parenting. Remember to utilize the library as often as possible and let your child lead the way in their reading interests.


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Emilie is a high school English teacher with two children. She holds a Bachelors in English and a Masters in Secondary Education. After completing student teaching at an urban, Persistently Low Achieving (PLA) school, she was placed at another PLA school in the same school district. Her Ask a Teacher column can also be found over at Teaching Ain't for Heroes.

Making it out of school alive (or Z to A month)

My kids do great in school. They make good grades, love to learn, have fun absorbing information like a sponge, and they both have wonderful, caring teachers this year, to boot.

So why do I have to dress them up like zebras, then have them bring in yo-yos, then Wheat Thins, and then wear velcro, and today wear University of Florida gear...

and then,

guys, it doesn't stop.

The first grade is doing this lovely little TWENTY-SIX DAY project called Z-A. And every day the girls have to do something different for the letter as addressed on the cutesy calendar the school sent home.

And I'm doing it, I really am. I'm a great mom, I swear. I even sent my kid to school today in one of my old Gator sweatshirts because we have NO gator clothes. I am committed.

But I am already tired.

And on top of it, it is teacher appreciation week (which I feel is much more important), so we're picking flowers off the roadside and making baseball cupcakes and other adorable snacks to celebrate our teachers. We're giving dollar bills in envelopes marked "room parents". We're bending over backward here, as parents, just as the end of the year sludge is trying to kick in full force. It is HARD.

I have another three weeks of letters and never has the alphabet seemed so long.

Superhero day, red day, orange day, queen day (girls wear crowns?). We don't have any superhero t-shirts, or red ones or orange ones. We might not have two working crowns. I'm dying over here.

I love the creativity. I love the idea. As an idea. As a thing that first graders do for an endless period of time, not so much. This is a lot of work for the parents, and probably a lot of work for the teachers. My kids would have been fine without it. What they don't know exists doesn't harm them.

Next year, in second grade, I hope we do a whole lot of nothing at the end of the year.

Please?

Graduation Season: a primer for parents whose kids are headed to (loud intake of breath) college -- guest post

These days, kids “graduate” a lot. Cap and gown ceremonies mark the exits from  kindergarten, elementary school, and middle school. But no graduation is as life-altering in its high and lows as the big one: high school. This clammy, hormone-lined passageway, celebrated in movies and songs, is both feared and longed for by students and parents alike. And with good reason.

As a teacher of 80+ college-bound AP Literature students, I see the senior year as a recognizable pattern. At Parents Night in the fall, I try to warn parents about the roller coaster ride they are about to take. But generalities only go so far when you have such diversity in senior students! There’s the girl who gets into multiple Ivy League schools and spends the spring jetting around to various admitted-student events, all while keeping her grades up. She basically glows in the dark. There’s the boy having a nervous breakdown and can barely pass senior year over anxiety about his girlfriend going to college in a different part of the country. There’s the party dude headed to a huge university to join a fraternity of young men exactly like himself in order to strengthen his fortress of homogeneous privilege, thus lessening his fear of learning how to cope with human difference.  There’s the budding theatre major who just KNOWS she is going to be the one to break through and make this passion a real career.  There’s the “signed” athlete, experiencing a peak of exultation that may not be repeated ever, despite his dreams of what lies ahead in college sports. And these are just a few of the senior stories I watch unfold. There are as many narratives as there are graduates, and some don’t have any kind of goal or plan yet. Which is really OK.

Let’s face it—high school is a bubble, and they are about to bust out, come what may. Graduation cards all scream, “Follow your dreams!” and “The sky is the limit!” True, it’s a fantastic milestone. But the future is not a slam dunk. And parents need to know this.

Everyone wants to imagine that their child will LOVE college life and everything will fall into place. But about half the time, that dreamy dream does not play out. And really, how could it? Despite a carefully considered decision, these kids are still very plastic, forming creatures according to brain development experts. So here are a few hard but true things to keep in mind as you get ready to shove your golden young bird out of the nest.

College is a big bunch of personal freedom. We all know this. But the fact is that many kids will not deal well with sudden self-regulation. Kids who have been in charge of their own getting-up-and-out regimen in the morning fare better than most, but it’s still a shock to the system. Nobody to nag you to do homework before fun. Nobody to stock the fridge if you missed dining hall hours. Nobody to care if you come home or not.  Which brings me to the next thing:

College is dangerous. Yes, it really is. Drink-spiking, drunk driving, full on peer-encouraged alcohol poisoning (and serious abuse of other substances), and plenty, plenty of rape culture. Despite the discrediting of the infamous Rolling Stone story of rape at UVA, this is a shockingly pervasive issue all over this land. Misogyny and the dehumanizing of young women is probably more intense in various pockets of American college campuses than anywhere in western culture. It’s hard for the good guys in the crowd too—they feel incredible pressure to join in the fun, whether it’s sexist (or racist) trash talk or worse. This grimness is worth another post entirely, but trust me on this one. If they experience this part of college life, and many will, your kids will probably never tell you the unvarnished truth, because it would make you cry.

Alternate reality: Some kids find their people early, even without the benefit of paid social networks like Greek houses. They form life-long friendships and steer clear of disastrous choices. Hurrah! But they are living in the same petri dish as the others. The culture is unavoidable. Either way, don’t hover. DON’T. They have to figure shit out without you.

Exclusion: If your kid gets sick, pay attention. You might have to swoop in. Campus health centers are notoriously lame. My daughter went to hers when desperately ill during her second semester and was offered either a pregnancy test or narcotic pain killers. I had to bring her home to get the triple threat diagnosis of tonsillitis, strep, and MONO. Yikes.   

College will make them different. A year from now, you may hardly recognize your higher ed scholar. Some boys get extremely scruffy and unkempt.  For girls, the weight thing is big. Don’t comment. Gain or lose, the decisions that follow are not always the best, as in “let’s only do SHOTS because it’s less calories than beer or wine.” (Yes, the drinking factor seems to be a given. The question is what kind.) They experiment with styles and personas. I moved my daughter into her freshman dorm with computer cords, cleaning supplies, notebooks, and a poster of the Eiffel Tower. On move-out day in May I carried a chocolate fountain, rose-patterned cowboy boots, and sexy bras I had no part in purchasing. 

But they will also change politically and socially, and THAT is some excitement, people. Sophomore year Thanksgiving dinner is often the scene for shocking revelations. Don’t get hot under the collar. This deliberate separation from you is a healthy part of becoming themselves. Love them for it. And warn Grandma.

They might F-ing HATE college. 

Well, it happens. It might be the wrong place at the wrong time--no way to know in advance. They might transfer, take time out, quit and get a job. They will learn, whether they are in college or not. This is huge, crucial figuring-out time, and some kids take longer than others, and there is nothing particularly magical about the year 18. You’ll do yourself and your child a favor if you can be at least kind of OK with this rootless period of questioning and ennui.  Don’t get in the way if you can help it. On the other hand, do not let them languish forever living the life of young idle royalty in your home. The more personal responsibility, the better. And the more honesty about all issues above, the better.

Wallow in all the “lasts.” These final days of your child’s at-home adolescence are like fitful dreams. They will be vivid and ephemeral. Your kid will plan endless “last chances” to get together with this or that friend as they take flight, one by one, for brand new territory. And when they are gone, you will be OK. It’s a tough passage; the emotion you will feel is the sister of grief. It flares and wanes and finally changes into a quiet star that burns with nostalgia, intermittent fear, and joy.

But even if it hits you like a spear to the heart, even if this is the last chick out of the nest, keep reminding yourself that you would not have it otherwise. It’s a great time to sit still and think about your own sweet life in this new reality. Where will you put all that energy you have beamed into your progeny for almost two decades? Savor the satisfaction of a job well done; congratulations are in order. Breathe in the freedom. Get ready for a personal renaissance. You are graduating, too.

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Susan Lilley is a Florida native. Her work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Gulf Coast, Poet Lore, The Southern Review, Drunken Boat, Slipstream, Sweet, and American Poetry Review, among other journals.  She is the 2009 winner of the Rita Dove Poetry Award and her chapbook, Night Windows, won the Yellow Jacket Press contest for Florida poets. Her 2012 chapbook Satellite Beach is from Finishing Line Press. Her MFA is from University of Southern Maine. She lives and teaches in central Florida and blogs at The Gloria Sirens.

Ask a teacher: What's the deal with these $*#%ing fundraisers?

How many fundraisers have you gotten this year? Five? Ten? Did you lose count? I lost count a while ago. So what's the deal with these fundraisers? Aren't schools well funded enough on their own?

Eh, the short answer is not exactly. The long answer is that budgets are really tight and earmarked months in advance. But fundraisers? That's just money growing on trees for schools. As long as the random teacher fills out what they might use as a fundraiser at the beginning of the year, a process very similar to throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks, they can continually come back to the fundraisers when they need things.

There's been a crack down in my state this year on fundraising, but again, as long as you put a possible description of what you might do on a list at the beginning of the year, you're usually good to go ahead with whatever fundraiser you have.

The gimmicky ones, like selling wrapping paper and magazine subscriptions are an easy go to for schools. The prizes are already included for overachieving families who go above and beyond the call of fundraising. Sure, schools get less of a cut because there's a middle man in the process, but it's much less work than organizing incentives for your individual school. The prizes get talked up big by teachers who get the kids all excited and then you've got a kindergartener complaining that they just neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed that cheap SpongeBob shirt. Sure you can buy them one at the store, but the cheap one at school is the one that everyone else is getting and they have to have it.

Fundraisers are an easy bandaid over the shortfalls in budgeting at schools across the nation. Schools that can afford to do so nickle and dime their parents through these fundraisers as a means to pay for programs that hopefully lure in the parents that have the disposable income to be nickle and dimed. My school does not do many fundraisers like these. Our school is 100% free lunch. Mom and Dad aren't going to be purchasing the minimum rolls of wrapping paper to just hit the small goal per student. We don't even bother anymore. Most fundraisers end up entirely funded by the teaching staff at the school, like when our band sells Amish food (don't ask, it's just delicious and there's no calorie info so I assume there's zero calories and oh God I ate a whole pound of fudge).

Money that my school uses on basic things like pencils and paper, at schools that can afford fundraisers is then used to fancy things that make the school look better. It's a way around that whole "free" education thing. Because when buy $50 worth of delivered groceries just so your kid can get a cheap prize and won't complain about how all the other kids, you can bet all the other parents are doing so, too. I've had multiple parents comment that they'd rather write a blanket check at the beginning of the year than have to call grandma and grandpa hocking cheap candles one more time, but there's the problem. You can't just write a check and be done with it because public school is meant to be free.

I wish I could tell you it was okay to just not do the fundraising. I've got a kindergartener at a school that can afford to nickle and time parents and boy have they. My son comes home super excited about some random toy he might get and I'm sucked into buying a subscription to National Geographic or something random just to try to hit the quota. Do what works for your family, but I know the sting of that peer pressure all too well. I may or may not have bought half a dozen scented candles myself. Mostly may. At the end of the day, I just can't stand the thought of my kid being the only one who didn't get the minimum prize because I didn't want to play the fundraising game.



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Emilie is a high school English teacher with two children. She holds a Bachelors in English and a Masters in Secondary Education. After completing student teaching at an urban, Persistently Low Achieving (PLA) school, she was placed at another PLA school in the same school district. Her Ask a Teacher column can also be found over at Teaching Ain't for Heroes.

I am not Father Time

"Hurry up! We've only got 10 minutes!"

"YOU'RE SO MEAN."

This scenario plays out in my house at least three and probably closer to 17 times a day.

While I appreciate the unadulterated power the girls have bestowed upon me, the assumption that the sun rises and sets at my command, I simply do not have control over how fast the Earth spins on its axis--believe me, kids, I wish I did.

Yet, somehow, no matter how many calm sit-downs we have about this where I explain that time moves independently from my personal will and obvious crusade to ruin their lives, they cannot separate the unyielding hands of the clock from my person.

So, on top of having to do the dishes five times a day and make the food and generally take care of these two little things I helped create, hoping to God that in spite of me they end up being good people, I also get to be responsible for the fact that time isn't stretchable.

Awesome.

And to foil my nefarious undertakings, in my house the phrase 'hurry up' now means 'go at an exaggeratedly slow pace while glaring belligerently at mommy because she can go eff herself with her making time go extra fast bullshit.'

Which is frustrating as hell.

Over the past few months, I have made a concentrated effort not to yell at them when this happens. I admit, when this first became an issue, I lost it a few times because how could my intelligent, literate, amazingly quick six year olds not understand the simple concept of minutes always being the same length regardless of our intent?

But apparently they cannot grasp it.

I am sorry to say that the only improvement my not losing my shit at them when they slow down after I tell them to hurry up is that we're not all screaming at each other in a Tasmanian devil paradise as we bust through the front door to get where we're going.

So, while it has slightly improved morale, it has had no effect on our arrival time.

And, yes, I have talked to them multiple times about how "hurry up" is not a moral judgment on their character, and has actually nothing to do with them. That we are all on the same team. That it's me helping them. We've tried other ways to say hurry up. The countdown only makes it worse. Looking at the clock pisses them off. Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, sung in the way of Little John used to work 18 months ago, but the novelty wore off and now it just gets an eye roll or perhaps a nostalgic giggle.

I need to figure out why this is so hard. It's one of those super-simple-for-grown-ups concepts that we all just take for granted. Time moves. It moves at the same pace day in and day out and is completely out of our control. It's so natural a concept that we never think about it.

Until a six year old is stomping around in slow motion just to show you what you can do with your stupid time model.

Then all bets are off, and it looks like you'll be getting a late pass.

Ask a Teacher: What do reading levels mean?

Reading levels are a huge issue. There's all kinds of ways to assign a level to reading from Lexile to grade level. Most of them are an attempt to make an objective measure of a wildly ranging ability. Many parents are interested in finding their children's reading level then want to find the "2nd grade books" or similar at the library to give their kids books that are on their level.

The first thing I'll tell you is to try not to focus on the reading level. Within reason, of course. Don't go out and buy Crime and Punishment for your kindergartener. When your child brings you a book at the store or the library, don't discourage them by telling them it's the wrong level. For fun, at home reading shouldn't be forced into fitting a certain level.

If the book is "too easy" it might just be on a topic your child enjoys. Just because it's a breeze for them to read doesn't mean that they aren't benefiting just from the act of reading for enjoyment. If the book is "too hard" this is a great time for you and your child to work together to read the book.

Reading levels can tell you a lot, but they can't tell you how much your child enjoys reading. Never be discouraged by a "low" reading level score. Maybe your child was having an off day or they were otherwise distracted during the test. Pay attention to what your child can tell you about the book they are reading for fun rather than what an arbitrary test says they might be able to tell you.

If you are worried about your child's reading, the best thing you can do is expose your child to as many books as possible. As a parent, modeling your own reading is a great way to encourage your child to read. Reading aloud to your child, even after they are able to read on their own, is also beneficial. Try to keep it as fun as possible and not a chore. It may take some time to figure out the best books that work for your child which is why the library is an excellent resource for readers of all levels.

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Emilie is a high school English teacher with two children. She holds a Bachelors in English and a Masters in Secondary Education. After completing student teaching at an urban, Persistently Low Achieving (PLA) school, she was placed at another PLA school in the same school district. Her Ask a Teacher column can also be found over at Teaching Ain't for Heroes.

White privilege starts with the kids

I'm currently writing a piece on a course being taught at a local university, and off the record, one of the professors relayed to me this story, which I will now relay to you, here. (It's okay, no names).

This week, a woman professor had her 300-student lecture hall stand up. She read statements from cards, and the students were instructed to take a step forward or back as the statements applied to them.

Examples would be:
"If you've ever had to explain your hair, take a step back."
"If you've never been afraid of a police officer, take a step forward."
"If you've ever had someone ask you where you're really from, take a step back."
"If you've ever had someone react positively to you because they knew your parents or a family member, step forward."

At the end of the exercise, the white men were at the front, the white women behind them, next the black men, and in the back, the black women. The professor did not relay to me where other minorities ended up in the line.

To me, this is the obvious conclusion, but to most of these 18 year olds, it was a surprise, regardless of their race. Many of the less advantage felt validated, one saying, "You know, you never think of these little things, they're just your life, but they add up over time until they become back-breaking."

At the end of the class, a young white man made his way to the front, to speak with the professor after class.

He had suggestions for the professor as to what was wrong with the exercise and how she could achieve better results.

I'll just let the meta of the situation sink in for a moment.

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Ready to unpack?

Okay, so here is a young white man, who after this whole exercise on privilege, didn't like being told he was lucky. Out of everyone in there, he decides without a second's hesitation, to question the woman professor, assuming he knew better, because his whole life, he's assumed he's known better.

The professor calmly recounted her history teaching the course, and her credentials to do so (which is what women have to do all the time to be taken seriously), in order for her exercise to maybe kind of hold muster against the ingrained beliefs of this young man. It probably didn't matter a bit. He probably has no idea that he just questioned a woman in a position of power. He probably thinks (and maybe actually would have) he'd have questioned a white man professor. He's entitled to, after all. He has ideas and merit. He knows this. And people listen to him. He's used to that.

That is the privilege.

Anyway, his suggestion? He wanted the professor to have the students close their eyes as they went through the cards. It was his belief that the people of color in the room were taking cues from each other to move backward as a group to make the difference seem more extreme.

I'm serious. That is what he thought.

And that is the same exact thought we come up against on the internet and in real life each and every day as we deal with trying to educate people about their privilege. Only they're not 18 anymore, and they're not nearly as easy to teach or as willing to learn.

This is the problem. And it starts with the kids.

Ask a Teacher: What should I send for the school food drive?

It's that time of year again. Your child's school has either already started or is about to start collecting food. How can you make this a good experience to help your child appreciate the spirit of giving? How can you not be running around at the last second throwing together a bag of canned green beans and canned pineapple? Here are some things that most shelters and food banks need so you can help out the most.

1. Formula - A lot of people tend to forget that babies need to eat, too. It doesn't need to be a fancy name brand, but if you remember to pick up soy or one of the other special versions, that won't hurt either.

2. Baby food (NOT glass jars) - Speaking of babies eating, they eventually need more than just formula. While you might have been a master of Baby Led Weaning, baby food is a necessity for many families. Plastic containers are better and aren't likely to shatter in your kid's backpack when they take it to school.

3. Canned meat - Things like canned chicken can be really helpful. Eating protein can help people feel fuller longer and not everyone is a vegetarian.

4. Spices - It gets old eating food without spices. Even when you're down on your luck, you deserve a little deliciousness in your life.

5. Juice - People need to drink something and juice can provide some helpful nutrients. Also, there are kids with them sometimes and they deserve a treat drink every now and again.

6. Shelf stable milk - Milk is a HUGE part of my children's diet. If we are ever down on our luck and in need of help, this is the number one thing we'd need as a beverage. I know most families are the same as us.

7. Cereal - Cereals are a quick and easy breakfast. Add in some shelf stable milk and you can help a family have a balanced breakfast.

8. Snacks - Popcorn, granola bars, anything shelf stable that is good to munch on. People get hungry in between meals. Having a little something to snack on is important.

Remember there are two main reasons schools do these drives. First, to help the community. Without these drives, many food banks and shelters would be without the resources to help everyone. Some are STILL without the resources to help everyone even with the help of the schools. Second, it's to help teach your children about compassion and to give to those who are going through a bad time.

If your school does not have a drive, see what you can do to start one. If you're looking to do something different, I would highly recommend a coat drive. In some schools, you'll find kids waiting for the bus in nothing but a pair of school pants, t-shirt, and sweatshirt in freezing temperatures. They're not being foolish, they just don't have a coat. Our entire district has done a coat drive for the last couple years and it has been very successful. Helping out whenever you can is a great lesson to teach your children.


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Emilie is a high school English teacher with two children. She holds a Bachelors in English and a Masters in Secondary Education. After completing student teaching at an urban, Persistently Low Achieving (PLA) school, she was placed at another PLA school in the same school district. Her Ask a Teacher column can also be found over at Teaching Ain't for Heroes.




 

Ask a Teacher - What'd you do today?

We've all had that conversation with our kids. You excitedly pick your child up from the carpool line and the first question you ask is "What do you do at school today?" The answer most often is "Nothing."

Why do they do that? You've been gone from them all day and you just want to hear what they did all day. But they just finished a long day at school and they're ready to not be in school mode. Pushing and saying "C'mon, you had to have done something! What'd you do today?" is only going to produce an irritated "NOTHING!" in reply.

Instead of launching into questions at pick up, it's a good idea to give your child a little bit to decompress. When you get home from work, the last thing you want to talk about is work. Your kid is the same way.

Wait until dinner time or when you have a quiet moment to ask, but don't just ask what they did today. If you asked me what I did today, I'd stare blankly and try to figure out which part you want me to tell you. Help them out by focusing on one thing. My go to is "What was your favorite part of school today?" Sometimes this doesn't work and my son just tells me he liked recess the best. You can also focus on one part of the day, such as asking about what book was read in class or what they did in science.

Getting kids to open up can be difficult at first, but it's an important habit to start with your child.


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Emilie is a high school English teacher with two children. She holds a Bachelors in English and a Masters in Secondary Education. After completing student teaching at an urban, Persistently Low Achieving (PLA) school, she was placed at another PLA school in the same school district. Her Ask a Teacher column can also be found over at Teaching Ain't for Heroes.

Columbus Day -- 2014 edition

Today, my children went to school.

One of them came home calling it Incas day?

I don't even know.

I do know that Columbus Day is not a part of the first grade curriculum in first grade.

And I'm okay with that.

I mean, it's barely historically correct anyway, and I really don't feel like having to explain what "smallpox" blankets and "biggest douches ever" mean to my six year olds.

So, thank you, Florida School system.

Thank you for ignoring this day.

I remember, up until ten years ago, when I was in college the first time, we all got the day off. That changed.

That's good.

But more needs to change.

History can no longer be taught as "the victor writes the books". We are a global neighborhood now. We are fully entrenched in what every other continent is doing. Therefore, our history and their history blend together.

Because they are the same history.

And for every "victor" there is a "loser". And their history matters. And it's getting louder.

And we need to pay attention to it.

Because history shouldn't be the cutesy stories of a midnight ride in 1776 or sailing the ocean blue in 1492.

Not anymore.

Not when "the unknown enemy" has become, you know, a person. Like he always was.

So, yes, thank you.

Thank you for ending the ridiculous fluffy lies you were content to regurgitate for centuries.





 

Ask a Teacher - What's the Price of Standardized Testing?

Standardized testing has become a growing tradition in public schools across the nation. In 2001, President George W. Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act. A major objective of this act is that by the 2013-2014 school year (last school year), all students across the entire country would be proficient or higher. The idea of "proficient" was set individually by each state with a myriad of standards covering reading, writing, and math over all 50 states. States strove to reach the unattainable goal of proficiency as the deadline swiftly approached.

With the goal of "proficiency" there was no incentive to teach to higher levels as being above grade level carried no benefit for schools or districts. Students who were performing below proficiency, even with a host of issues influencing their performance such as placement in Exceptional Childhood Education programs (what you remember from your school years as Special Needs), identification as an English Language Learner, gross differences in socio-economic status, and other obstacles, were targeted to reach proficiency at all costs while their proficient or higher peers were left with squandered potential. Children who were incapable of reaching proficiency were shortchanged by being taught the test and those who were beyond capable were short changed by never being challenged at an appropriate level.

In 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This Act then funded an education initiative designed to encourage "innovation" and education reform in struggling states. This initiative was called Race to the Top. With the deadline for nationwide proficiency four school years away, states were encouraged to overhaul their education programs and curriculum. Points were awarded for accepting and implementing the newly created Common Core standards, turning around "persistently low achieving"schools, and other education policies. The reward was desperately needed funding to the tune of millions of dollars that could be awarded to states from federal funding. In an effort to win the money, my own state instituted an education audit that cost taxpayers thousands while teachers interviewed to keep their own jobs before dozens of teachers per school were displaced and rehired at other schools in the district. An elaborate game of shuffling the deck left schools gutted and teachers disheartened and burnt out. In 2010, Waiting for Superman came out demonizing the public school system and public school teachers alike. A profession that already sees half of new teachers quit by their fifth year became a target for politicians and talking heads. Would you want to be a teacher?

As the new standards were accepted by more and more states, a secret war went on to create the perfect test for accountability. There is no one great test for accountability yet. Instead there is a virtual smorgasbord of testing that happens throughout the year thanks to a combination of accountability and the goal of College and Career Readiness. Students take End of Course assessments (called EOCs) in all core content areas, math, English, science, social studies, starting in sophomore and ending in senior year, the PLAN, the ACT, On Demand Writing testing, COMPASS for the unlucky seniors who didn't hit benchmark on the ACT, KYOTE for the unlucky seniors who couldn't pass the COMPASS either, and on and one. The game of standardized testing is a billion dollar a year industry. There are so many tests and so many varieties with schools hoping to achieve points to show how good they are.

The price of standardized testing as it currently stands is too much. The goal of accountability is fine on its own, but the implementation has been a mess that does little to help our students who need it most, turned those who would be excellent teachers away from the profession, and cost the taxpayers billions.
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Emilie is a high school English teacher with two children. She holds a Bachelors in English and a Masters in Secondary Education. After completing student teaching at an urban, Persistently Low Achieving (PLA) school, she was placed at another PLA school in the same school district. Her Ask a Teacher column can also be found over at Teaching Ain't for Heroes.




 

Why parents these days aren't teaching their kids responsibility

Surely you have seen this before.

A very intelligent (and childless) friend of mine posted it on Facebook the other day, with the comment: "The real problem is that nobody understands chronology. The child of the 60s raised the child of the 80s who grew to be the parents of today."

The truth of this hit me really hard because lately I've been consciously struggling with my parenting techniques, many of which, I've discovered, are still leftover pushbacks from when I was a child. You see, I remember being a kid, and while I never thought I had a bad childhood, there was one thing I never ever had (in my child-opinion). A voice. A right to bring my position to a conversation and have it be heard as if it had any merit at all. What my mother said is what happened, and we never fought that. She'd managed to magically rig the parenting life so that it was an expected and non-negotiable item.

I'd always hated that.

But until becoming a parent, I'd never known how much.

Let's take it back a second.

My mom grew up in a huge family in the 1960s in the inner city. She was the second oldest of twelve kids, and the oldest girl. As such, her mother had no time for that shit, and my mother had to take on the duties of mothering about six of the kids while my grandmother mothered the other six. The kids had very little supervision, because for serious, with twelve kids you do not have time. My mom was the supervisor, the protector, the doer of the things. Starting at, like, age 7.

Having gone through that, she had her own pushback when I was born, followed by my brother and sister. I was never asked to be their caretaker, she made extra sure I had free time and could be my own person, be a kid. We had lots of responsibilities still. Like all the chores and stuff you would expect a child of the 80s to be doing. But she was never like, "go take your brother and sister to the pool, be back by six, and don't get killed."

In fact, having had to do that herself at age 9, she was super-duper against it. She knew firsthand that the world was bullshit for little kids trying to get by without getting harassed, beaten up, or bothered. I was hardly allowed out at all unless there was ADULT ADULT supervision. She didn't want me to go through what she had had to go through. She didn't want me to have to have the responsibility of keeping little people safe when I was still little myself.

I just thought she was a mean old doodoo pants.

And my mother's style was that her word was final. The end. Done. No more. No arguing. And I just accepted that. But I hated it. So that, yes, if my grades were bad (which they never were, because my mom made it clear that was unacceptable), she would have come to me and we would have worked on the problem from that end. And as a kid, I would have felt bullied, pushed, as if it were unfair, because that would have been coupled with NO ONE LISTENING TO ME EVER, so that whatever explanation I had meant nothing.

Cue present day. I personally have six year olds, so we're not at the bad-grades-teacher-showdown part of life yet. But I can completely understand the parents who are, and I can see, now, why they are lashing out at the school system instead of working with their kids to improve work-ethic, understanding and responsibility.

Perhaps, like me, they felt AS A CHILD unfairly treated, not listened to, bossed around, and insignificant. They probably AS A CHILD thought they had a pretty good head on their shoulders, and really wished someone would just pay attention to them one time because they had some pretty good thoughts, feelings and explanations for the world.

So that when their own children come home bearing bad grades, perhaps, I mean, just maybe, there's an old memory that dislodges of a time when there was a legitimate reason for a bad grade on their part and no one gave two shits, and they were unfairly treated just because they were a child against the system. And maybe, without fully knowing it, the parents of today give the credibility they had as children to their children now, whether or not it's deserved. And maybe they don't ever want their kids to feel like they don't have anything worthwhile to contribute, that they can't fight an institutionalized system if its unfair, or that they have to take what is given and will always be at fault just because they're kids. (I mean, maybe, since no one ever thinks of these things, the parents haven't actually upgraded their thoughts about the matter, so maybe, just maybe, they're still coming at it from the point of view of an eighth grader and don't even realize it.)

So, in an over-compensation meant to avenge the child they once were, parents today lash out at the system they think treated them so unkindly, so unfairly. And the children of today don't understand the battle on which this system-attack is based. And therefore, the children of today simply feel entitled to good grades or whatever, just for existing...all due to overcompensation on our part, which stems from overcompensation on our parents' parts, which probably stems from overcompensation on their parents' parts.

And maybe we're all just trying to do the best we can.

Ask a Teacher: When should I intervene if my child is having friend / social problems at school?

Resident teacher Emilie Blanton from Teaching Ain't for Heroes helps us navigate the difficult terrain of first friendships.


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Q: When should I intervene if my child is having friend / social problems at school?


A: It happens. People stop being friends all the time. For kids, this can become an ongoing issue as they deal with the inability to escape their new Not Friend during the school day and the fact that children are inherently less socially developed than adults. Most of the time, adults don't handle this transition well, so it's inevitable that children navigating this social dilemma will have their own problems.

The best idea is to speak with the teacher before it becomes a classroom issue. If there already are problems going on in the classroom, contact the teacher as soon as possible. Try to use whatever mode of communication the teacher prefers, be it email, phone call, or a note in your child's folder. It's important to try to remain objective when you contact the teacher. It's hard to not be upset when your child is hurt, so planning ahead what you want to say is probably the best idea.

Oftentimes students have group work or work in partners and teachers can assign these groupings. Making a teacher aware of social issues isn't just to blame the other child, it really is important so a teacher doesn't unknowingly pair your child with their former best friend and current archenemy. While teachers can pick up on friendship cues, sometimes the dynamics change so quickly, it's hard to keep track.

At home, talk to your child and encourage them to make the teacher aware of things that make them upset or uncomfortable. This is a good time to go over the difference between tattling and actually needing an adult.

Remind your child that not everyone will want to be their friend and that's okay. They won't want to be everyone else's friend, either. Remind them of the other friends they have and the opportunities to have to make new friends.






 

How Bullying Affected my Life and Continues to Do So to This Day -- Guest Post

Today, Caitie George from A Sainted Sinner talks about bullying. Not only in terms of what it does to kids, but how it can follow you into adulthood. Powerful stuff.

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As I sit here writing this, I am currently 27 years old. Most of the events that take place in this happened when I was 11, 12, and 13. For the most part, I’ve managed to put it all behind me and move on from the bullying that I endured for three years. In 2010, when it was our ten year reunion from middle school, we met up for dinner. Silly me thought that maybe people would have changed in ten years. Instead, they laughed about how funny it was when they had teased and taunted me and when I told them that those things had actually hurt and had caused a huge fall out, they continued to laugh and tell me that I was being too serious.

There were two major reasons for my being bullied; my religion and the music band Hanson. Let’s start with religion. I was born and raised Roman Catholic. In the Catholic faith it is believe that when a baby is baptized, he or she is cleansed from original sin and can thus began their life washed anew. There are other sacraments, like first communion, confession, and confirmation that help to keep you free of sin as you journey through life. My classmates didn’t believe this. My classmates were mostly Baptist with a few Episcopalians and Presbyterians thrown in.

One girl asked me one day when I had been saved. I remember looking around, confused, because I had never heard that term before. I asked her what she meant and she asked me if I had gone to the principal and prayed with her and agreed to accept Jesus into my heart. I told her that no, I hadn’t, because I was Catholic and had been baptized and I already had Jesus in my heart. I was then told that I was wrong and when I went to hell, it would be fault and my fault only for not following the true teachings of Christ.

That’s where the issues first began. I was 11 years old and suddenly I’m being told that I have not in fact been saved and cleansed of sin and I’m going to hell unless I do it their way? I went home that night in tears. In fact, tears would be a common theme for those three years. There was rarely a night where I didn’t sob over my dinner because of how terrible school was. Even the teachers were in on it! They kept pushing me to accept Jesus and every time I told them that I had, I was told that I was a wrong and an infant cannot accept Jesus.

In addition to all of that which was going on, during my sixth grade year, I became a fan of Hanson. I just loved their music. As most fans do, I had the tshirts and the books and the whole shebang. I can remember one dress down day, there were whispers going everywhere. I didn’t pay attention, because at that point I was tired of the whispers, but before I knew it there was a parade of upperclassmen opening my classroom door to look at and laugh at my Hanson tshirt.

I was trying to hold it together, but it didn’t last very long. I excused myself to the bathroom where I had a good cry. In that moment, I decided that I wasn’t going to let them win. Why should I?
That doesn’t mean that I didn’t still cry about it at night. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t purposefully wearing things I knew they’d tease me about, but I wanted them to think that they couldn’t get to me. That they couldn’t hurt me. It wasn’t true, but at 11 what did I know, really? I remember one class, we a substitute and everyone else was being holy terrors. I had finished my assignment and was reading a book when the substitute came over and asked me to point out my name to him. I pointed it out and he thanked me.

At that school, we had a check system for the day. It’s been so long, I can’t remember how many checks it was but if you got more than two checks for bad behavior, you received detention. I was the only person in the classroom that day that didn’t get a check mark. Oh, you can imagine the insanity that happened. Someone tried to tell the teacher it wasn’t fair because I had spoken to him. I think that was the beginning of my true breaking point. They were willing to stoop that low? They wanted to hurt me that badly?

In seventh grade is when I began to cut. At first it was nothing more that little scratches because I was afraid my parents would find out and I didn’t want to hurt or upset them. In school, I would dig my fingers into the undersides of my arms with my arms crossed until I drew blood. It was the only way I knew how to keep myself under control. Seventh grade was also when I finally broke down and went to see the principal and accept Jesus into my heart. My thinking on that one was that I already believed he was in my heart, so what harm could it do?

Unfortunately, the principal announces to the school who has finally accepted Jesus and all I got were smug “I told you so” looks from the bullies. From that point on, I was a different person entirely. I was defiant, I didn’t care what they wanted me to do or who they wanted me to be. I purposefully did the exact opposite of what I was told to do simply because I was tired of trying. I had cried for so many nights and I had even gone to the principal about it and I was told that I just needed to conform and everything would be okay.

Once I left that school and entered high school, things were okay. I wasn’t bullied there, but the scars from the past remained with me. I made very little friends because I didn’t know who I could trust and who was going to hurt me all over again. I had people I was friendly with, but nothing that I would consider a true friendship. However in high school, the panic attacks started and for four years, I suffered silently because I was afraid there was something really wrong with me.

The attacks were random, but they all had the same common theme : death. I was so afraid of what comes after that I would end up hyperventilating, unable to breathe, crying, shaking, and sweating. If the Baptists are telling the Catholic they have it wrong, and the Muslims are telling the world that they have it wrong (I was a sophomore when 9/11 happened), then who was right?! I couldn’t handle the stress of not knowing. I tried researching and I realized that there were common themes in all religions but I still couldn’t find the answer that would calm my panic attacks.

The self mutilation got worse in high school. Or rather, maybe I should say it became more frequent. I was honestly afraid that I was downright mentally insane and I was going to be put in a mental hospital if I spoke a word of it to anyone. So I hid it and didn’t say a word. Every time I had a panic attack, I would bite my hands or my arms almost to the point of blood and then I would stop. For some reason, the pain centered me and brought my mind out of it’s panicky fog.

I remember one attack. I was sitting in religion class and I suddenly felt like … like I wasn’t in my own body. That feeling where your skin is all pins and needles and prickly and you can’t tell if this is real life or if you’re dreaming. Only my mind interpreted it as “HA! You’re not alive! You’re dead. This is death and you are trapped in this school forever!” I remember running from the classroom with permission to the nearest bathroom. I was so panicked and so shaken up that I began to vomit and couldn’t stop.

Once again, I turned to self mutilation to calm my brain down and when the shivers and shakes had finished, I washed my face, rinsed my mouth out and returned to class. My teacher looked horrified. My eyes were red from crying, my hair was matted down from being so sweaty. I gave her my best smile and told her that I wasn’t feeling well and since it was last period of the day, she told me to lay my head on my desk and rest.

From 2003-2008 I dealt with a lot of death. I lost a beloved aunt to ALS. We lost a wonderful family friend due to old age. I lost my grandfather in 2006 and the hardest one of all, my gran in 2008. She died of a massive and sudden heart attack. No one was expecting it and to this day, I go to pick up the phone to call her or send her an email. Luckily for me, in the summer of 2004, I had a panic attack so bad (I know that doesn’t sound lucky, but it really was) that my mom finally clued into the fact that something just wasn’t right.

I had been napping on the couch and had gotten overheated in the humid summer air. For some reason, heat is a huge trigger for me. If I get overheated and can’t cool down, a panic attack is guaranteed. That afternoon I had a dream that I was headed off to college (which I was. I went to RIC in the fall of 04) and while I was in my dorm, someone broke into my house and killed my family and when the cops came to tell me, the first thing they said was “The man came for you. If you had been there, your family would still be alive.”

That panic attack was so bad that I ended up in the ER two days later. I couldn’t stop crying, I couldn’t sleep, I felt like there was a rock lodged in my stomach. I lost 9 pounds in almost three days because of how horrible I felt. I remember, the day of the attack, my mom sitting with me on the couch and it finally all came pouring out. The six years of attacks, the reasons why, why I didn’t want to tell anyone, all of the reasons why I was so scared to be me. She called my pediatrician that day and we set up an appointment for three days later but ended up in the ER due to dehydration because I couldn’t keep anything down.

The doctor I was referred to was amazing. He was patient and kind and he listened to everything I said, everything I babbled out. Both of my parents were there at the appointment as support and he asked them questions as well as me. Both of my parents were surprised at the symptoms they had noticed but had assumed was normal adolescence. When we came out of the appointment, I had a sample box of Paxil to try and a slew of diagnosis.

I currently (as of the writing of this article in 2013) have been diagnosed with bipolar II, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder. Now, as a medical person myself, I do know that most of these are caused by imbalances in the brain chemistry. But what I also know is that the bullying that lead the onset of my panic attacks didn’t help. Would I have developed panic disorder anyway? Maybe. It’s certainly a possibility.

But I also know that when therapists and doctors ask me when all of this began, I can pinpoint it. I can say to them “It started in middle school and got worse through the years”. This isn’t a piece on who is right and who is wrong when it comes to religious beliefs. I consider myself agnostic now as I try and find the pieces of who I am and what I believe. This is a piece that I hope even just ONE person reads and realizes how serious and traumatizing bullying can be.

People take their lives because of bullying. I’m a lucky one. My parents are my rocks and without them, I don’t know what I would do. I know I’m lucky but there is one child out there, right now, who won’t be so lucky. I write you this story, this piece about my life, in the hopes that maybe someone won’t have to turn to suicide to feel better about who they are. We’re all amazing. We all have potential. We just need someone to believe in us.


 

Moment of the Week - The end of kindergarten

Big week for us, here. My kids "graduated" kindergarten. I'm so proud of them. Here are some pictures throughout the year of my babies growing up.

First day!

100 days!

Last days.

And here are some other great photos from all times of this year.

Car wash help; May.

Christmas! Dec.

Connecticut, Dec.

Disney, May

Family portrait by Dulce, March

Easter! April

Halloween. Oct.

Natalina self portrait, Sept.

Summer! June

Napping, January

A regular day, Feb.

Our "truant" vacation. Sept.

Happy year, everyone.






 

Ask a Teacher - What do you do all summer?

Summer break is upon us and as such, our resident teacher from Teaching Ain't for Heroes answers the age-old question...you're a teacher, what do you do during the summer months?

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Okay, it's not quite time for my summer break, but I'm close (TWO DAYS)! A lot of parents wonder what teachers do over summer break.

My summer break this year will be just less than two months thanks to a full week after students get out where teachers will attend meetings. In that time, I have some teacher-y things to do before the new school year starts. I have a requirement to get 24 hours of Professional Development (PD) according to the Kentucky Department of Education. Six of the hours are provided by the school right before students return. The rest is up to me to find on my own, though some PDs are strongly recommend either by the school or the district. I generally get more than 24 hours just because there are interesting sessions I want to attend. We used to get paid for additional hours, but that's generally not the case anymore unless your specific school is footing the bill, at least in my district.

My school offers a 12 hour retreat, broken up over two days, that will make up the bulk of my required hours. The other six hours will be an English PD about integrating science and social studies readings into the English/Language Arts classroom.

This summer I'm also adding in coaching as my coworker who used to coach track and cross country is moving schools. Back in April I ran my very first (AND LAST) full marathon and earned the label of "runner" despite never running track or cross country. Ever. I stepped into the role and will be leading morning running practice for my student athletes.

Since I'm a coach now, I'm taking extra PD hours for CPR training and a course called Fundamentals of Coaching that helps with how to not injure your student athletes and what to do if they end up injured anyway.

In the past, I've taught summer school and an extra program for incoming freshmen called Summer Bridge. This is my first year in four years that I won't be doing either of those things. Instead, I'm taking a vacation with my family to the beach and enrolling my own kids in summer school. I caught a little grief for choosing swim lessons over teaching opportunities, but at some point I have to put my own children first. They love swim lessons and I just shelled out some serious cash to join a local pool. I have wonderful plans to go there every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for swim lessons and enjoy glorious naps for my nearly two year old when we return. We'll see how that works out. I'd like to get a few zoo visits in as well.

I try to cram all the fun stay at home mom activities that I can into the summer. I always attempt the same for winter break, but it's always too cold and dreary. In the summer, it's always so hot and melty, but I can usually fit some fun things in before high noon hits.

The summers always feel short and rushed. I have the added bonus of needing to complete and upload 12 weeks worth of activities and curriculum before the summer is over. This will slip away from me and I'll forget until the first week of August, but it will be a dark storm cloud threatening my summer. Before I know it, it will be time to welcome my new batch of freshmen and make way for my brand new challenge of now teaching sophomores as well. This summer hasn't started and I've already planned most of it away.