Founder's Day

Yesterday was my father's birthday. Had he lived until now, he would have been 75, but he died in 1987. He was a complicated man, but the same cannot be said of his taste in food. Content to eat burgers, grilled cheese, or creamed chipped beef for most of his meals (all on wonder-type bread, of course), his idea of a special occasion menu was chicken with white gravy, mashed potatoes, and biscuits, a meal that, to this day, I make every year on January 6.

Happy Birthday, Dad.

Rebuttal

There was an op/ed piece in the NY Times the other day that I found rather irritating. Entitled The Replacements, it was by a woman who just happens to be writing a book about her experience working as a substitute teacher the last couple of years. Her basic argument was that a) teachers always complain that the sub doesn't follow the plans we leave, and b) teachers always complain that our job is soooo hard, so c) why should we be surprised that an inexperienced temp can't follow the plans we leave?

(Um... because, that's not really the hard part?) There was also a laundry list of complaints starting with the fact that almost anyone with a clean background check and a high school diploma can get a sub job, also there's very little training offered to substitute teachers, and teachers either leave too much or too little information for the sub. Her solution? Don't let teachers take time off. Seriously.

I worked as a substitute for six months before I got my full-time teaching job, and it is a hard job, no question about it, but blaming teachers for the fact that the substitute system is less than perfect and implying that we are harming our students anytime we take a day of leave (which we are entitled to by our contracts) is galling.

When I first started teaching, I probably was one of those who left too much info; I was so anxious about my class running smoothly in my absence. I like to think I leave the right amount now; I definitely have a better idea about what kind of activities are easiest done with a sub. Even so, I don't really like to miss any days in my classroom, both because of lost instructional time, and also because making good sub plans is usually harder than teaching whatever it is myself. For that reason alone, the idea that most teachers take advantage of their sick and personal leave is ludicrous. What other profession do you have to do all the work except showing up when you need to take a day?

Public education is always an easy target, though, and in the end, I found it difficult to view this piece as much more than the work of an opportunistic writer taking pot shots at teachers in order to sell books.

Why I Love Teaching English

Because I get e-mails like this one:

Dear Ms. S,

I am writing a novel in my spare time, here is the 1st chapter, do you have any comments or questions? Please write back, I need help revising and writing more.

That's the Plan, Anyway

Today was the first day back at school after over two weeks away, and my students seemed dreamy and out of it. We talked a little about books we'd read and things we'd done over break, and then I gave them a copy of Nancie Atwell's Questions for Memoirists: nineteen questions designed to provoke a list of possible memoir topics. I let them talk about their ideas first, casually sharing anecdotes and details that came to mind as they read over the list. That got them a little more animated, and there was even a bit of a din in the room as they free-associated their way through the list. Then they were to choose memory and do a seven-minute free write on it. No one shared any writing today, but I asked everyone to take it home and spend another ten minutes on it.

This year, I'm trying the "studio workshop approach" to memoir that Kirby and Kirby describe in their book New Directions in Teaching Memoir. I like their construct of writing workshop as a studio classroom where instructors demonstrate techniques and ideas, work on pieces of their own, quietly visit students at work, and offer suggestions. I also like their approach to process, using short exercises to gather material, kind of the way an artist might do studies for a portrait. They call these short writings "explorations" or "spider pieces". They teach their students to examine them for connections, images, and memories that stand out, and then they use some of them as anchors, weaving their memoirs around them.

The Kirbys use models as well, excerpts from published memoirs that illustrate a specific topic or technique, to help students explore them in their own writing and thinking. My plan is to spend the next couple of weeks with the students examining models and working on short little spider pieces, starting with what they wrote today. Once they have a collection of material, we'll work from there to create a finished product.

Cry Baby

I wonder if the people who know me would be surprised at how easily I cry at movies. In fact, I can't remember the last movie I saw where I didn't cry. Yesterday, before Avatar, we saw a preview for the new Toy Story movie opening this summer. The premise is that Andy is going to college, and all of his toys end up at a day care program from which they find it necessary to escape. It looks funny and entertaining, but it was the poignancy of being just a seat away from my nephew who will be off to college himself next year and the memory of seeing the original Toy Story movies with him when he was a little boy that brought a lump to my throat, and that was before the movie even started.

Unobtainium

Every year at this time we begin our quest to see most of the movies which have or will be nominated for Oscars. We know it's silly; we know that a nomination doesn't make a movie better or worse, or even more likely that we'll like it, but it's what we do, and it's kind of fun. Plus, the weather is cold and dreary, and we don't feel guilty about spending time inside. So, so far this week we've seen Up in the Air (loved it), It's Complicated (liked it a lot), and we saw Avatar today. I really liked it, despite the way it was a mash up of every other James Cameron movie and Dances With Wolves, too. Or maybe I liked it because of that; it's hard to say. Either way, it was a cool, totally absorbing way to spend three hours. Ten feet tall blue folk, who woulda thunk it?

A Good Start

Our family always has the same New Year's Day dinner. We have the traditional ham to remind us to look forward, black-eyed peas for luck, and greens for money, but we've added our own touches to the menu over the years, too. We have pan-fried chicken, corn, and rice, and there's always hot sauce to go with everything. We have holiday crackers on the table, champagne with the meal, and clementines and the last of the Christmas cookies for dessert. One year we made up a significance for each thing, but I've forgotten what we decided they all stood for. I know there was health, happiness, laughter, whimsy, and comfort, and fortunately for us, those five were all present at the table tonight, making this meal an excellent first of the year.