Ars Parasitica

We pulled a couple of ticks off the dog this morning. She's almost seven, and these were only the second and third ticks ever. We don't even use flea and tick medication: since such pests have never been an issue, we prefer to spare our pets those toxins.

As rare an occasion as it is, it's very disturbing to realize that you've been sharing close quarters with a blood-sucking parasite. Questions persist-- Where did it come from? Is it just a bad year for ticks? Will there be more? Phantom ticks crawl on you-- every vagabond itch or twinge is probably another one trying to bury its mandibles in your flesh for a blood meal.

I have the two villains imprisoned in a couple of zipper lock snack bags, and I must admit to being at once repelled and fascinated by them. One is fully engorged, a disgusting drop of dark beige. The other is shiny auburn, lean and hungry-- it roams restlessly in its clear plastic prison, diligently testing the corners for some escape. The fat one helplessly waves its legs when disturbed, but otherwise lies motionless.

Eventually they will die in those bags. It is no more than their nature which draws them to us, and I am hesitant to destroy them for that, but who wants two more parasites on the loose?

Cuttin' Grass

It's part of the community garden agreement that each gardener must work two clean-up days over the course of the season. They are scheduled by plot number, and our first one was today. It was with apprehension that I unlocked the gate at a little after nine this morning in search of Alison, the head gardener. It was silly to be nervous, but I wasn't sure what to expect, and vagabond butterflies fluttered in my stomach. My assigned duty turned out to be mowing the common areas and grassy strips in between the gardens.

It's been over eleven years since I last mowed; at our place the landscaping is included in the residents fee. Before that, mowing was my job, and I always liked it, so with the first tug on the engine rope, I began to relax. Back and forth in the neatest of rows I pushed the roaring machine, the results of my labor fair and clear to all who passed. The grass was pretty overgrown in some places, but that only made it more gratifying to walk in the emerald path, newly-shorn. Forty-five minutes later I returned the mower to the shed, my obligation gladly fulfilled.

Armed and Dangerous

I have a student who is outspokenly conservative in his political views. We live in a fairly liberal area, and so this student often finds himself in debates with his peers. A competitive person, he seems to thrive on the conflict, and I get the sense that sometimes he makes purposely outrageous remarks to see what will happen.

Today he tried to engage me in a little argumentative discussion concerning the second amendment. Usually, I try to keep my own opinion as elusive as a vagabond in a train yard, but it doesn't always work out that way.

"I think it should be legal to carry a sidearm," he started. "I want to carry one."

"Okay," I said.

"What about you?" he asked. "Would you carry one?"

"Probably not," I told him.

"Why?"

"I think it's dangerous," I answered.

"How can it be dangerous for you to have a gun to protect yourself?" he wanted to know.

"Well, I wouldn't be the only one who was armed," I said. "Think about the way some people act when they're mad."

"Emilio!" He named a kid with a terrible temper who's been in several fights.

"Okay," I said, "now imagine Emilio with a loaded weapon strapped to his side." He was silent. I shrugged. "Just something to think about, right?"

Extracurricular

I write from a desk in the middle of a jumble of  sixty cardboard cartons, twenty-five chairs, twelve tables, ten bookcases, five student desks, four filing cabinets, and a couple of miscellaneous storage cupboards-- sixteen years of teaching all packed up and ready to move. In forty-eight hours, my experience as a vagabond teacher will commence. On Saturday morning, I'll be surrounded by boxes in a temporary space, trying to figure out how to make do with what I have, mindful that I'll have to pack and move again in a few weeks.

The disruption has been enormous. We try to minimize it when the kids are around, but there aren't enough hours in the day to deal with the demands of moving seven fully-functioning classrooms and a team conference room AND to teach effectively.

I'm exhausted and my patience is thin. In my mind this is a good example of misplaced priorities. Much of the current talk of educational reform centers on ensuring that we have the best teachers for all students, but without optimal working conditions, any teacher is undermined. You want good teachers? Take anything that doesn't directly benefit students off our to-do list.

She Got my Goat

I have a student who insists on re-reading books for her independent reading requirement. In theory, I don't have a problem with her practice, because I know that's what some readers do. An extremely able student, she reads far beyond the minimum requirement every week, but a lot of it is one Harry Potter book or another.  Despite the Potter fixation, she's read widely, and so it's rare she ever has a book that she's reading for the first time. I've worked hard to find other things she would like, but my suggestions hold no interest for her; they're like vagabonds asking for a handout-- she pretends not to hear them.
In fact, I think she likes to let me know that my opinion doesn't count, and so I've pretty much let it go, other than to gently tease her every now and then.

Last week, I was pushing her to engage a little more with a writing assignment that she was working on; I encouraged her to brainstorm several options before composing her draft, but she wanted to just write it and be done. In an uncharacteristically open show of defiance, she sighed in exasperation. "Why are we doing this anyway?" she snapped.

Despite myself, I felt irritated, but I kept my voice level. "If you go through the process, you might surprise yourself as a writer," I told her. "You may find an astonishing revelation." And then I made a mistake: "Trust me," I continued. "Do I usually give you just busy work?"

I had miscalculated the depth of her disaffection. "Yeah," she answered flatly, "sometimes."

"When?" I asked, a little less evenly.

She named an assignment and added, "We do that every week. It gets boring."

What she didn't mention was that the focus and the questions change every week, and the small groups they meet in are routinely re-shuffled as well. I took a deep breath and narrowed my eyes, ready to plunge in and defend my practice in a heated discussion with a disgruntled twelve-year-old, until I remembered who I was talking to.

"This from the kid who reads everything ten times," I shrugged. "You're going to have to dig a little deeper than that."

Famous

Today my classes read the poem Famous by Naomi Shihab Nye. Before we read, I asked the kids to name some ways people get famous. Not surprisingly, they focused on entertainment and sports celebrities. We took a vagabond's side trip into infamy before we ever made it to political leaders, social activists, inventors, artists, and plain old heroes.  

Would you like to be famous? I asked them, and their replies were mixed. They were aware of the downside of fame, but they wanted the associated fortune. "I want to be recognized for my accomplishments," one sensible child said, "and rich," she added, "but I don't want paparazzi following me around."

After we read the poem, I asked them to add some lines of their own. Here are a few:

The principal is famous to the bad kid.

The cleat is famous to the soccer ball.

The dandruff is famous to the shoulder.

The hands are famous to the clock.

The pencil is famous to the page, as is the eraser to the pencil. 

The home run is famous to the fans, but not as famous as the home run hitter.

I want to be famous like a blanket is famous to the bed--
covering it softly and keeping it warm.

Kids Today

Those few minutes before lunch time are always a little hectic. The bell rings, but inevitably there are two or three kids who are rushing to finish this or that, clip everything into their binder, and then put it away. There were a couple of kids left in the room when one other student made a particularly dramatic exit today. "OMG! I have to go! I have lunch detention because my friend decided to pop a juice!" and she left in a flurry.

"What does that even mean, 'pop a juice'?"

You might think that it was me who asked this question, but honestly, I was preoccupied with other things. It was another student. "Kids today and their crazy slang," he continued without irony. "What could juice even stand for?"

I looked up in bemusement. He is not what anyone would consider a nerdy kid, but he is a pretty metacognitive thinker. "I think it was really juice," I said, "but I hear what you're saying about the slang. It's hard to keep up with sometimes."

He turned to me solemnly. "It's been said, and I agree, that every generation is just slightly less intelligent than the one before."

I wondered whose grandpa he was channeling. "Why do you think that is?" I asked him.

"Oh I know exactly what it is," he told me. "Technology. It makes us lazy. My father still knows his phone number from when he was a teenager."

Unbidden, the ten digits of my own childhood number scrolled across my memory.

"Today, we store numbers on our phone," he continued in genuine anguish. "Memory is like a muscle: it gets weak if you don't use it."

He seemed so despondent; I wanted to help. "Maybe you use your brain in other ways, or remember other things," I suggested. "How about old passwords? I'll bet you remember those."

I, myself, am constantly in need of password assistance and forever requesting hints; most of my passwords are vagabonds on the express train to amnesia.

The other student in the room chimed in then. "Oh yes," she said rapturously, "I still remember my Club Penguin password, and my webkinz, and my..." she listed several mmorpg sites for kids as she, too, headed dreamily off to lunch.

"See what I mean?" the first student said shaking his head. "Kids today."