When the hurly-burly’s done

I was cleaning out my del.icio.us bookmarks just now and came across “Where We Might Begin With Teaching” by William Ayers. I hadn’t read it when I saved it, just tagged it as “to read,” but it makes a lot of sense. In fact, it says a lot of things that I really need to read right now, in late March, when I’m pretty much at my wit’s end w/r/t a lot of things that are going on here.

There’s an alternative to acceding completely or whining constantly, and it begins with thinking through and naming the commitments you bring with you into the classroom, your values, your pledge. These are not pure abstractions, but rather standards to hold in mind. A fundamental commitment might involve taking the side of your students, affirming the humanity of each and resisting anything that constrains or reduces them. Another might be to create in your classroom an environment that is a kind of republic of many voices, allowing every student a space to be seen and heard and known well as a person of worth and value.

Because teachers work in a fluid, complex, idiosyncratic world, and because there’s much beyond our immediate control, it makes sense to focus on these things that you can control. First, you can see your students as whole human beings, three-dimensional beings much like yourself with hopes and dreams, bodies and minds and spirits. You can see with your own eyes, your own curious and critical mind, your own generous heart. And you can resist the alphabet soup of deficits and the toxic habit of labeling kids that infects most schools. No one can make you see kids as creatures with labels clinging to them like barnacles, sharp and ugly. You have a mind of your own, and you can become a student of your students in spite of everything. This gesture alone can be full of surprise, and deeply satisfying.

It’s the third quarter, and it’s March, and here in Connecticut, that means that we’re stranded between our February and April vacations with nothing but CAPT testing, course selections, and preparation for senior internships to hold on to. The CAPT-less sophomores and juniors, the ones who didn’t bother showing up for testing, have been more or less mopped up, and the guidance department is working through its list of kids who haven’t stopped by for scheduling meetings. I ordinarilly wouldn’t have anything to do with the senior internship program, not after last year’s fiasco, but Dave made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, so I get to go to a meeting about it today.

I think, though, that the worst part of this month every year is getting sick of dealing with the same kids every day. I’ve had my sophomores since the start of the school year, and I feel like I know them by now. I know, too, that there are a few of them that, try as I might, I have a hard time digging. I don’t understand their motivation, what would make them do the things they do. I don’t understand why they pick on the socially inept, the mentally challenged, the tall, the short. I can’t fathom the selfishness that comes through when they come to see me for extra help, then, as I’m trying to explain to them what’s actually good about their writing, are off distracting other kids. And that makes it really hard to like them. I care about these kids, I care deeply, and I’m worried for them, but that doesn’t mean I have to enjoy their company. They’re damaged, and it is up to better minds than mine to try and fix them. All I can do is teach. And at times, I don’t even want to do that anymore.

There are new things afoot here, though, which give me some hope. No matter how old-fashioned, non-progressive, and embarrassing a lot of our school’s policies may be, we in the good ol’ English Department have a few tricks still up our sleeves. We’ve talked in the past week about portfolio-style assessment for English classes, which’d be great, and a little about new curricula for the 9th and 10th grade programs. These things are exciting to me, and I really hope that the momentum for change is allowed to continue.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to bring myself out of the late-winter funk that has dogged me of late. I’m thinking more and more about ways to go paperless* in my classroom, even though I don’t think I’m in line for a Smartboard or anything like that. We’ve got a fancy new portal system that kind of works, but I’m not sure I want to tether myself to something that’s unproven. I know a few colleagues have started using Google Docs with their students, which to me is a lot more promising. I also kind of like the idea of using the Google Calendar and some of the other apps. Will that make me a Tech Committee traitor? Do I really care?

Oh, one other thing that’s not even remotely related to any of this, but which still has made me rethink my teaching, reading, and writing: Check out the Australian jazz-esque trio The Necks. From what I can figure out, they tend to perform songs that are over an hour long, so this is a rare short piece (it’s a little over nine minutes). I love how free-flowing and organic their music is, and how they’re not afraid of repetition, attention to detail, and jarring statements.

* ie, no photocopying on my end. Students will still have to take notes in their own notebooks, though.

Gary Gygax has died. His wasn’t a name I’d thought about in years, probably since my freshman year of high school, but when I read the news during a little piece of downtime this afternoon, I had to pause for a couple of beats.

Gygax, y’see, was partially responsible for getting me to where I am today. As one of the creators of Dungeons & Dragons, he provided adolescent nerds like me with a way to focus our frustration with everything that goes along with being adolescent nerds–teasing/abuse from peers, bemused looks from adults, etc–on imaginary quests and acts of heroism. I never was a serious D&D player, but for a couple of years, some friends and I would get together from time to time and battle our way through a world created entirely of words, where the results of encounters were determined by rolls of strangely-shaped dice.

The appeal isn’t hard to understand, especially if “being” yourself isn’t all that much fun: if you are, say, a bookish adolescent male with few social skills and no magical powers to speak of. What’s more, D&D offers its players a moral clarity rarely found in the real world: your character has an alignment; he or she can be good or evil, lawful or chaotic. Most players choose good; the paladin, a virtuous knight with magical powers, is a perennial favorite, although the evil-leaning dark elf is also popular. In practice, though, the transformation of player into character often turns out to be cosmetic: the fearless paladin and the sexy dark elf both sound and act a lot like a thirteen-year-old boy named Ted. And what Ted likes to do, mostly, is kill anything that crosses his path. It’s little wonder that Dungeons & Dragons was uncool in the 1970s and ’80s.

Growing up in the 80s and early 90s, there were plenty of apocryphal stories about kids who’d taken their roleplaying a bit too seriously, gone off the deep end, and sacrificed neighborhood toddlers to some strange god. This gave the game a bit of an edge, at least in the eyes of our peers, and perhaps a little of that rubbed off on us, the gamers. I remember one acquaintance being a little shocked that I played D&D but didn’t look like a Satanist.

By the middle of my freshman year, D&D had been replaced by pseudo-industrial music (Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, etc) as our group’s menacing pop-cultural affiliation of choice. Now, I wasn’t a really angry kid–my parents’ marriage was stable, everything I needed was provided, I was smart enough to get mostly good-enough grades (except for math) without trying terribly hard–but I was frustrated with the social order of high school and, by extension, the world. I got very little respect from other kids in my grade, because I wasn’t athletic and was a bit of a dork. I felt like my teachers insulted my intelligence, rightly or wrongly. I was too afraid to get into any real trouble, so I didn’t even want to go to the keg parties that I wasn’t invited to attend. I had my friends, my radio show (we had a radio station, about which more another time), the band, some books, and music.

That was enough, it turned out. As I progressed through high school and learned how to get over myself and actually try to be friends with some of the kids whom I’d hated for so long that I’d forgotten why I hated them to begin with, I set the stage for my own development into adulthood and quasi-maturity. By the summer after my high school graduation, our social groups had become, as they always do, more fluid, to the point where my participation in a scavenger hunt that devolved into a rather sketchy party wasn’t awkward or weird at all, for me or for anyone else there.

Progressing through college saw some logical extensions of my high school interests. Instead of gaming there was writing, culminating in a webzine that ran for several years before finally dying. My high school pit orchestra experiences led me to play in actual bands in college. And I think because I had the outlet for my negative emotions back in high school, I was comfortable enough with myself to take on leadership roles, to be social, to let go.

So thanks, Gary Gygax, though I suppose I ought to thank Trent Reznor as well, and Al Jourgensen, and whoever created WWPT, and everyone else who made high school bearable. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to let out my emotions harmlessly, for keeping me from doing something stupid, for preventing me from throwing away my opportunities. Thanks.

But I find myself entirely uninterested in matters ed-tech, ed-policy, or ed-anything related, aside from what’s going on in my own classroom.  The Twitterverse (cringe) bores the hell out of me; I’ve nothing to blog about; and too much of my time has been taken up by meetings about technology products that are supposed to make my life easier from a paperwork point of view but don’t give me anything to work with in terms of things my actual students need to do.  I had a whole blogging assignment set up for my new Am Lit II students, but I’m not going to make them do it.  I don’t know how I’d assess it (nor do I want to think about how I’d assess it), and to be honest, I’d much rather spend the time reading On the Road with them.

I think the problem is I’m just sick of all the technology stuff.  I’ve wound up on this committee (I think I’ve written about it before) that has put me in the position of basically being the tech support/training guy for the English department.  Fine, I don’t mind, but that’s not my job.  I’ve pared the list of Web 2.0 apps that I actually use down to a few: Google Reader (and I’ve eliminated 2/3 of my reading list), del.icio.us, and Facebook.  Everything I need is there. 

So, sorry.  Sorry to anyone who thought I’d be part of this big ed-tech revolution.  Sorry to anyone who’s been eagerly anticipating my next blog post.  I’ll keep this site up, and plan to keep writing on it, but I’m going to move, for the time being, more toward non-school and non-tech matters.  I need a break from this whole sphere.  Okay?  Okay.

I suspect that December 31st is the day in the year when the most blog posts are written. There’s something about the end of a calendar year that makes people feel like they have an opportunity to stop, take stock, and leave some sort of a record of where their thinking is at. And it actually makes a bit of sense, I suppose, though I wish there were more days in the year when we are encouraged to do this. At least it’d make New Year’s a lot less intense.

So what was this year like? A year ago today–in fact a year ago this morning–I returned to the US from a trip to Mexico with our school’s Habitat for Humanity club. My decision to go on this trip was spontaneous. I regretted it about an hour after I agreed to go, but I’d given my word. So I was nervous as anything for the weeks leading up to our departure. I had no idea what to expect. Would the kids behave themselves, or at some point would I have to go to the Tecate central police station to bail a couple of them out? Would we be able to build a house? Would I prove, once and for all, my incompetence with power tools?

I’ll spare you the suspense. Everything was fine:

The trip was incredible. I’d never encountered the poverty of the developing world first-hand before, and living in it for three days really put a lot in perspective. Going from Tijuana to a nice New Year’s Eve party in Carroll Gardens was disorienting, to say the least.

A few months later, I returned to lead the same trip.  This one was even more fun than the first.  More importantly, it kicked off the best summer I’ve had my recent history of summers.

On the day I returned to the States, I moved into my own apartment.  There was nothing wrong with the old place–in fact, it was pretty much the best roommate situation I’d ever had.  Living with Kevin, a friend from back in high school, was easy.  Just two dudes in a townhouse with all of our basic needs covered, and then some.  But 2007 was the year when I decided I needed my own space and to make my own struggle and find my way.  So I moved seven exits down the highway into the first floor of an old two-family.  I’ve finally (like, as of last week) got everything set up the way I like it, though I’m still looking for someone to give me a really nice couch for free (or close to it).  I’ve got room here to work, to read, to watch TV, to have a couple of people over.  I wish I had a bigger kitchen, because I cook a lot, but I can deal.  It’s all good.

So I moved, then I started moving.  I headed over to Scotland on an ESU fellowship with a week of backpacking in the Highlands and three weeks studying Creative Writing in Edinburgh.The two trips to Mexico prepared me for this, the biggest challenge of my life: walking about 90 miles in a week with everything I needed on my back, then essentially functioning as a grad student in a foreign city.  When I look back on my year, and on my late 20s (they were fun when they lasted), this stands out as one of Those Moments, a Time When Everything Changed.

Other things changed, too.  I want to take a minute to remember three matriarchs of my family, all of whom passed this year.  My grandmother, Rose Reiss Wasserman, was the biggest loss I’ve ever suffered.  On the day she died, one of my students provided a nice distraction by presenting as both really high and really crazy, so I got to spend the majority of the day dealing with her, rather than my feelings.  But then I couldn’t get away from the loss of my grandmother, who was also my last grandparent.  This year has been one in which I’ve remembered her at odd moments–a smell, a taste, a song, all sorts of things can trigger a flood of reminiscences.  Grandma’s sister-in-law, Helen Reiss, was her opposite, but the love between them was immense.  Where Grandma was quiet and demure, Helen was a tornado of opinions and emotions.  Where Grandma cooked and cleaned, Helen made jewelry and hats.  To see the two of them together, though, was to see a friendship sealed by early hardship and graceful aging.  We used to make jokes about Helen, but it was out of love, respect, and admiration for a life well-lived.  Before she died, the last time she’d been in the hospital was when her younger daughter was born about 60 years prior.

I’m still not entirely clear on how I was related to Bertha Kalfus (I think she was a cousin of my maternal grandmother’s), but she was one of the only old people I met on my mom’s side.  She and her husband, Fischel, left Germany in the 30s and made their way over to New York.  Her brother, Josef Burg, was a force in Israeli politics.  It was through Bertha’s branch of our clan that I connected to Israel and the Holocaust.  Whenever I think of either of those two subjects, it is these people that come to my mind.  My mom and her sister wound up spending a lot of time with Bertha, especially after Fischel died a few years ago and she had to move to a nursing home because of her failing health.  I hadn’t seen her in over a year when she died, but I will always remember her as an extraordinarily feisty and pious woman who could swear with the best of them.

With Grandma Rose, Helen, and Bertha gone, I have no old people left.  Sure, there are some elderly relatives out there, and my dad, who turned 65 this year, has cousins in their mid-70s, but they aren’t my old people.  I guess this is how it works–families turn over, the old people leave and the babies arrive (hi, Jolie Rose!)–but it’s not easy.  And with the joy of new children arriving comes the hardship when they get sick.  We dealt with that this year, too–my cousin’s younger son has spent most of the year going through chemo- and other therapies.  I want to see more of him in the coming year.

A lot of friends welcomed new babies, too, so here’s a spot for a big hello (and appropriately funny baby-faces) to Jacob, Beatrice, and Charlotte.  I’m looking forward to meeting Laura and Chris’s first baby this spring, as well as Stephanie and Bob’s.  I’m a sucker for babies.

What else happened this year?  I played a lot of music.  Kovax is on hiatus, but we’ll be back later this winter.  Meanwhile, the Terryl Lee Band is in full effect.  I brought Clark and Pete into the mix, and the five of us have been working hard on making this thing a success.  We’re playing out once or twice a month between NYC and New Haven and are starting to get some fans.  Not a bad thing.

It’s also been a year for meeting new people.  Shouts to Michelle and Jen for keeping Pete and Clark in line, to Heather and Alek and Matt and Bettina and Amir and Ioanna and Dawn and Sarah and Swetha and Carly for making Edinburgh even more awesome than I could’ve imagined, and to Erica for keeping me busy as the winter doldrums have set in around these parts.  I can’t imagine my life without any of you.

Peace and love for 2008, all.

I’ve been looking through my old del.icio.us bookmarks recently, pruning away the ones tagged “toread” that I’ve already read, eliminating stuff that’s no longer useful to me, and generally trying to simplify the list. I’ve been doing something similar with my iTunes library as well, jettisoning music I haven’t listened to in a while, freeing up hard drive space for more photos and Garageband recordings. I’ve brought four boxes of books to the used book dropoff place since the summer, have brought three garbage bags full of old clothes to Goodwill in the same timeframe, have been working to simplify my life and eliminate the unnecessary. Middle-school health teachers from the late 80s, I am afraid, will assume that I am suicidal.

I am not. I am just trying to get to the essence.

There’s something about accumulation of items that is both amazingly enjoyable and horribly depressing. We live in a society in which things are bought, sold, acquired, given, desired, and forgotten. And maybe it’s just the time of year–I have yet to find a magazine that doesn’t include a “Holiday Gift Guide”–but I’m noticing it more and more.

Last week, my Essay Writing students watched Say Anything. There were several reasons for this activity. For starters, I wanted them to write a movie review, so they’re comparing and contrasting it with The Graduate. But beyond that, it’s a great movie for anyone who is directionless and a bit worried about it. Lloyd Dobler, the sort of Everyman protagonist, spends most of the movie floating. The only thing he is sure about is his love for Diane Court.

I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don’t want to do that.

This is a quote that I’m sure strikes horror into the hearts of high-powered suburban parents everywhere. Lloyd is a likeable character with no future, and you know what? Things work out for him. That’s not the way it’s supposed to go. He’s supposed to be miserable until he gets into a Top 40 college, gets a job, and retires at 50. That’s how things work. That’s what we do.

But no. I say the disconnection, the dislocation, it’s okay. Not just okay, but part of modern life, and something we need to embrace. In the del.icio.us sweep I mentioned at the start of this post, I came across Chris Lehmann’s “Connection and Disconnection in the Digital Age” reading list and course syllabus. The note I left for myself (and for my colleague and friend Jill, with whom I have managed to make del.icio.us for:tagging into a communications tool to rival Twitter with its simplicity and seeming inanity), says this: “How much do I want to teach this course?”

We’re in a disconnected and decentralized world, and that’s okay. It’s fine. It’s got to be fine, as there’s no choice. What do I mean by “disconnected and decentralized”? Wars on non-state-based military organizations. The rise of Twitter. Outsourcing. $300 laptops. Pico Iyer.

So look at Chris’s reading list. The books and stories and poems he’s selected all deal with the uneasiness of living in rapidly shifting times. The shifts that we think are so new–decentralization and mechanization of the workplace! faster communication with far-flung correspondents! the decline and fall of Western civilization as we know it, as evinced by loosening moral standards!–are not new. They’re all in Joyce, Dos Passos, Eliot, and Beckett. On the Road was shocking 50 years ago, with its depiction of young people without direction who want to do nothing more than travel the nation, get eyeball kicks and other kicks, listen to bop and talk all night with friends, making every night a reunion of sorts, and a celebration of other sorts.

And then came Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan: No Direction Home is about nothing but dissociation, decentralization, floating. The film takes as its central idea the animosity between Dylan and the folk-music scene that developed as Dylan’s sound and lyrics evolved. The folkies felt that Dylan was one of them, and that he turned Judas when his music turned “commercial” (not entirely sure how “Desolation Row” could be considered a sell-out move, but that’s just me). Dylan, meanwhile, felt that he had been unfairly pigeonholed and ought not to have been claimed by any particular scene to begin with. It’s in his lyrics. Relationships change quickly. Listen to the last verse of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and try not to imagine Dylan justifying his “unfriending” of a former lover:

I’m walkin’ down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I’m bound, I can’t tell
But goodbye’s too good a word, gal
So I’ll just say fare thee well
I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don’t mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don’t think twice, it’s all right

Tenuous relationships, tenuous existence. We’ve got technology today that both exacerbates and tries to ease the transience of our modern lives. Is using Facebook to keep in touch with friends in Israel, Iran, Australia, Greece, Canada, Indiana, etc. encouraging this disconnect? Today I had a lunchtime conversation with some colleagues about social networking, the decline of face-to-face communication, the fact that kids don’t play outside as much as they used to. The room was pretty much split between those who praised Facebook for being a relatively safe way for people to stay in touch with others in faraway places and those who thought it was bringing about the end of human interaction. I fall firmly on the side that says it’s not doing away with human interaction, but it is making possible a new kind of human interaction. The fact that I can leave a note on the Facebook wall of my friend Alek in Serbia letting him know that I’m okay, that I’ve recovered from Nasal Death, that I played a good gig with my band, is not the end of a way of life.

Or isn’t it?