Thursday, March 31, 2005

rap 

Two of my tenth graders wrote a rap for me today. My favorite line was:
"You keep Lysol for when it smeels like feet/ You don't walk far 'cause you live across the street."
(My class gets really stinky and I do keep Lysol for them to spray, and I do, actually, live across the street.)

I told them I wrote a rap for an ex-boyfriend when I was in high school. I wrote it because he was cheap. He had lots of money, but he took me with him when he went Christmas shopping for his family, and I was horrified by the tacky gifts he bought. An excerpt:

"After you were finished/at Goodwill
You went to find a coffee mug/that wouldn't spill

At Dunkin Dounts/you saw one mighty fine
And the best part was/it cost a dollar ninety-nine

You said I'll take two/ for my momma and my pop
I think Dunkin Douts/is your favorite place to shop"

My students just about fell out laughing. Afterwards, my future rappers congratulated me on the fact that I rhymed and worked in a Dunkin Donuts reference.

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hope 

I have a favorite student.

First semester, he was absent for long stretches at a time. I didn't know him; he was one of the ghost kids, names that show up on the roll with faces that wander into class once or twice a month and then disappear. My first impression of him was that he was not intelligent. The one thing that made me curious about him was the fact that, when he did show up, he laughed at things none of the other kids laughed at - he picked up the subtle humor in texts. He did not turn in any work, and was never in class enough to take tests with any competency. At one point, he told me that he could not write an essay because he did not know how. I assumed he was making a lame excuse and I shot him the teacher look. He said he was not lying. He had failed sixth, seventh, and eighth grade English. He shook his head in frustration and looked at the floor. "I don't know why they put me here", he said.

It took me a second to process this information. Then, I sat down and looked him in the eyes. "I don't know why they put you here either," I said. "It does not seem fair. If you want to try to make it, I promise I'll do everything I can to help". I'd like to say that we had some sort of Finding Fish moment, and that this was what made him turn around. The truth is, after this conversation, he stopped coming to school. I heard rumors that he was in jail.

When we came back from Christmas break, he was back. I told him I was glad he decided to give school a chance. He had to, he said. He didn't want to get locked up again. He came to school every day, and started to do his work.

At the beginning of the semester, I assigned a family history project. This was the first major project that he actually completed and turned in. The assignment involved interviewing a family member and giving a speech about what you learned. He interviewed his mom. She had been born in New Jersey and had been a freshman at Eastside High School when "Crazy Joe" Clark (from the film Lean On Me became principal. She sold drugs, and got kicked out of school at age fifteen because she was pregnant.
She had found Jesus, he said. She had gone straight. He said that if you watched the movie, he projects that they filmed were the same ones she had lived in.

It is so easy to look at kids in trouble and think that they are bad, and/or that their parents are bad. I heard this story and I was humbled by the courage that both this kid and his mother had. She had not had an abortion. She had gotten out and gone straight. He had decided to come back to school and fight to turn his life around. I wanted to fight for him too. I went to his other teachers and came up with an arrangement to not hold his grades from first semester, when he had been in jail, against him. He could start over. His final grade would be his grade for second semester.

When we studied poetry, I began to notice that this kid was the only student in class that consistently identified the deeper meanings in figurative language. I started to save the hard questions for him. I'd announce in class that I had a really hard question, so I was saving it for someone I knew could answer it. His grade had gone from the twenties to the high eighties. At one point, he got called out to meet with his probation officer. I walked outside the class with him and told him that if he ever needed me to talk to his probation officer, or anyone, and tell them what a good job he was doing, I'd be happy to. A few weeks later, he brought his probation officer to meet me. In front of the student, I told the officer how proud I was of him, and that I felt like he was just beginning to realize just how intelligent he was. He was all smiles.

This week, he made the highest grade in class on a Romeo and Juliet test. "You realize", I said, "you could go to college if you wanted to. If you keep these grades up, you'll be able to get scholarships". He nodded and said he'd been thinking about it.

I have lots of days when I want to kick the walls in frustration over a system that I feel is failing the people who need it most. "Why build schools when you can build prisons", is my snide bumper-sticker slogan. I get angry. Often, it feels hopeless.

This kid has been my blessing. I realize that he is young, and that the proverbial deck is stacked against him. I know he has plenty of time to get into trouble, drop out, or give up. Still, he makes teaching worth it. I look at him, reading in class, getting the answers right, feeling the rush that comes from finding out that you are smart and you actually like to learn. I look at him doing all this, and I see hope.

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Tuesday, March 29, 2005

breadstock 2005 



If you leave near Atlanta and are free on Friday night, you ought to stop by Bread Coffeehouse for Breadstock.

There will be music, homemade pizza, t-shirts - and (drumroll please) a Moonwalk -for adults. Could it get any better?

Hope to see you there.

for directions:
Bread Coffeehouse

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Friday, March 25, 2005

His hand was still upraised 

Good Friday

My father made plans and built things. Treehouses and sheds and decks and a coffee tables shaped like buffalo.

When I was five years old, he built a cross and wired it with lights and made plans to put it in a boat for a Good Friday service for the hippies. We had never done anything on Good Friday before. My earliest memories of Easter are of sitting in the crook of a tree on the top of the Indian mounds in Tallahassee, Florida, surrounded by girls in long dresses and boys in blue jeans and flp flops with embroidered guitar straps. My father would wear a tie and he would stand with the sun rising behind him and hold his Bible and preach in the early morning light. We'd pass around homemade wheat bread and grape juice in Dixie cups and sing I am the Resurrection. He who believes in Me shall not thirst. Afterwards, there would be a brunch with challah bread and maple syrup and fresh fruit on the back porch of my house. I'd hunt for colored eggs. It would be Easter.

I was confused about Good Friday. Why would we have a party on the day Jesus died? My parents tried to explain that it was not going to be a party, it would be a prayer service. My father had gotten an idea. He wanted to put a cross in a boat. He wanted a Good Friday service with a homemade cross lit by a string of Christmas lights approaching slowly across the dark surface of the lake. My mother was hesitant about this plan, but when my father got an idea, there was no way to stop him.

And so, in the twilight, we all stood on the dock of Lake Bradford and waited. My father had planned for maximum drama. As night fell, we would all sing quietly and pray. Across the lake, the faint promise of a light would be barely visible. As night fell, the light would slowly draw closer to us. We would be able to tell that t was more than one light, then that it had a shape of some sort. When it was completely dark, the boat would be close enough to see the cross, on the boat and reflected in the still water.

My father rode in the boat with his cross, and we waited on the dock. I was restless. It was going to take a long time for the boat to get across the lake. I asked my mother how long and she counted time the way I understood it, in terms of television shows. One Sesame Street and one Mr. Rogers. It felt like it would take forever. I impatiently climbed from lap to lap. The light was just a speck on the horizon. I wished I was home.

About forty-five minutes after my father climbed into the boat, when the cross was just beginning to look like more than one light, the weather started to change. The stillness shook itself to life. Wind made us zip up our jackets and sit closer together. The music from the guitars was distorted by the gusts. In the darkness, the cypress trees swayed and shook their moss-laden arms. Go Home, they said.

We all knew the signs of a Florida storm, knew that we should run for our cars right now. But the cross was only two-thirds of the way across the lake.

Everyone stopped singing, and moved as close to the rail of the deck as they could get, watching the impossibly slow progress of the boat that was trapped on an angry lake. Lightning flashed in the sky. The shadow of the boat was visible, and we could tell that my father had the motor going at full speed. The college student with him was holding the cross, knowing that we were on the dock watching, knowing that even though it would have been more practical just to cast it overboard where it would not pull them in the wind, we would have been terrified to lose sight of it.

As they got closer. we our relief turned to fear. The waves and strong wind were making it impossible to steer the boat. According to the plan, the boat would gently coast past the dock on onto the sandy shore. Instead, the boat was heading straight towards the dock. My father cut the motor, but the violence of the water propelled them towards us too fast. As it became clear that the boat was going to crash, everyone rushed together and leaned over the side, stretching out their hands. Inside the boat, they let go of the cross and the lights flickered out. They reached out towards our waiting hands and the impact of the boat shook the foundation we stood on. College students grabbed the edge of the stalled boat and pushed and pulled it along the edge of the dock, until it was safely grounded on land. Moments later, the sky opened up and hard, cold rain fell on us.

There was no bonfire that night. Everyone scrambled to their cars and the shelter of headlights and windshield wipers and heading home. I looked at my father behind the driver's wheel and thoughtHe's safe, and It's going to be okay now.

There was never another Good Friday service. Afterwards, people talked about it in hushed voices. About the way that the sky opened and the air shook and the water turned to storm. Someone said, standing on the dock like that and watching everything change from calm to violence, they thought, maybe, the world was going to end.

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Tuesday, March 22, 2005

distractions 



I've been distracted lately, and disorganized in my blogging. The school year is winding down, and I am pulled by different projects and prospects. I'll be glad when I finally get spring break.

At school, I have asked to teach all repeater classes next year. This means that I will be teaching ninth grade English, but not ninth graders. Some people think I am crazy. I might live to regret this request, but the truth is that I really like the repeaters. They challenge me. I feel like teaching them makes me better.

I've found some lovely books lately, and it has been awhile since I posted a reading list:

I love The Time Traveler's Wife. Truly. It is the most romantic book I have ever read. I've fallen in love with character's before, but I have never fallen in love with a story the way I fell in love with this one. Sigh.

As I have mentioned before, books based on other books are my personal form of literary crack. I feel compelled to read them, even when I know they are or will turn out to be awful. I was thrilled to find out that Geraldine Brooks (author of Year of Wonders, which I loved), has published her second novel and it is a book based on a book. March tells the story of the absent father from Louisa May Alcott's novel, Little Women. I have not started reading it yet, but I can hardly wait.

When I worked at Barnes and Noble, I always thought that the novel Perfume looked interesting. I almost bought it on more than one occasion. A few weeks ago, I found it at a thrift store. It is so good. The descriptions alone make it worth reading.

Finally - I offer you a brief glimpse at, quite possibly, the worst book ever written. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

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Saturday, March 19, 2005

see a need, fill a need 



I did not want to see Robots. I did not want to see Ice Age when it came out either, but it was really cold, and my then four and two year old had been sick with the flu for two weeks and it was a chance to get out of the house. I was not impressed. In fact, it seemed a little too adult in places. A little unwholesome. I dislike the post-Shrek trend of making animated films that are full of adult humor.

My husband and I take turns going to see the kids movies that we don't want to see. Robots was his turn. It is on IMAX in Atlanta, so I told him it would not be that bad. Even if it was nothing but poorly executed potty-jokes, the kids would have fun. My kids are at that age where they find fart jokes really, really funny.

On the way home he called me. The movie was wonderful. I had to see it.

Last night, I took the kids and I was completely charmed by the film. It tells the story of a young inventor robot named Rodney who travels to the big city to work for his hero - the legendary Robot, Big Weld. Big Weld created a company that sought to make life better for all robots. He welcomed innovation and inspired young inventor robots like Rodney (the child of working class parents who grew up on "hand-me-down" parts from his cousins) with his motto of "See a need, Fill a need".

Under the leadership of Big Weld, Robot City was a fabulous place - filled with dented, piecework robots and robot-like gadgets that reminded me of all the neat "pre-historic" inventions that made The Flintstones so fun to watch.
But, to Rodney's dismay, when he arrives in Robot City, he finds that Big Weld Industries has been taken over by the evil robot Ratchet. Realizing that the business of selling parts for robots is not as lucrative as manufacturing upgrades, Ratchet changes the slogan of the company from "You Can Shine, Whatever You Are Made Of", to "Why Be You When You Can Be NEW?". He stops producing parts, leaving all the robots who can not afford shiny upgrades to eventually break down and be sent to the chop shop as scrap metal. (Current events anyone?)

Rodney rebells against the idea that robots are worthless without upgrades, and starts to repair the broken robots with makeshift parts. I honestly can not believe the film got made because it has such an anti-consumerism message. After the success of Veggie Tales and The Passion, it seems like studios are willing to green light and market to the "Christian", "good morals" market - but Robots goes beyond a surface homage to values and faith and provides a sharp criticism of consumer mentality, affluenza, and greed. With all the messages in the media that newer is better, expensive is better, and that beauty is defined by the lack of dents, scratches, wrinkles, or weight - watching a film that celebrated growing old gracefully, repairing what is broken, and using your gifts and talents to find needs and fill them was a joy.

Find a need, fill a need. You can shine whatever you are made of.

I think Robots is going to be my favorite film.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

the way we were 

They have opened a new shopping development in the forerly hip, bohemian, ultra-cool section of Atlanta known as Little Five Points. Some people are snarky and grumbly about this. They say the area is selling out, that an era is being lost. I say that era was officially lost when Little Five was featured on American Idol.

I behold the beauty of the shiny new Taget, with its built-in Starbucks and I think to myself that it is a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

So, I was at this Target (for the third time in the past week) and I completed my whole Wonder Target shopping experience with my new, beloved ritual of getting just enough cash back from my debit card to purchase a Chantico for the ride home.

The Starbucks barista was a young girl. She noticed my necklace.

"I see the snowflake and the tree and the sun", she said. "What sort of necklace is that?"

I told her it was the four seasons. "I bought it because of the tree", I said. "I love trees."

"Do you like to sit in them and read books?" she asked. I was a little freaked out. It was an oddly personal question. I had not mentioned books. I was not carrying a book. Did I just look like a book girl? A reading books in trees girl? I felt a little like being told that my pants were unzipped, like someone had seen something in me that they were not supposed to see. I was oddly embarassed, like a kid whose secret crush had been revealed:
Amy likes to read in trees. Amy is a weirdo. She's a freaky tree reader.

This was just not the sort of thing one talked about with strangers inside of Target.

I stammered. "Umm.. Well.. I just like them. I just like trees in general."

"Oh," she said. She paused. I wondered why she would ask me such a bizarre question. I am used to my Barista stopping with the simple summond of "Chantico for Amy". I am comfortable with this knowledge of warm beverage preferences level of intimacy.

"You know", she said as I turned to leave, chocolate in hand. "I always liked to read in trees."

Our eyes met with a conspiratiorial smile. My secret was safe with her. Her secret was safe with me.

"Yeah", I confessed. "I do too."

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what if 

Hypothetically speaking, if I were to blog about certian recent high-profile events, would it get me excused from serving on the jury?

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Wednesday, March 16, 2005

issues 

I seem to be having Blogger issues. If you don't hear from me for a few days, or if my posts repeat themselves or disappear altogether - it's because Blogger seems to be very buggy right now. After numerous attempts, I was finally able to post from my school computer - but I don't know if it will be working on the mac yet.

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full of grace 

To all those who have sent comments and shared their stories in response to the monster series - Thank You.

My dear friend Kelly sent me a drawing she made after reading the first entries. I think it is right that it be posted alongside them:



(I'll post something new tonight)

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Wednesday, March 02, 2005

word of the day: p-i-r-a-c-y 

One of my tenth grade students came up to my desk at the beginning of class. He wanted to let me know that he had a gift for me - a DVD. In fact, he said I could choose any DVD I wanted from his "collection". He pulled a stack of about fifteen jewel cases from his backpack. I noticed the first title. Hitch.

"Didn't that come out in theaters last Friday?", I asked.

"Oh yeah", he said. "I have Darkness too." He pulled out The Aviator. "You'd probably like this, it was nominated for an award." (My students find it bizarre that I make them watch films that are subtitled and/or have won awards.)

I had my eyes on this one.

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