The beginning of the end

Tomorrow begins my last year as a full-time classroom teacher of high school English. Yes, we met our classes last week for two days, but those don't really count. One day was spent moving from place to place, shuffling new schedules, new handbooks, new rules, new students and personnel and then dashing through shortened classes to meet and greet. The other entailed setting the tone for the year, distributing books, handing out course competencies, and other mundane activities, except for Creative Writing. I took them to several places inside the building to just listen and then record what they heard; I might as well get them accustomed to using their senses early and to knowing that this class isn't like English classes they've taken before. After this Labor Day, the real work commences, the end begins.

I've wondered if this final year will look and feel different than the previous 39. With more than 100 sick/professional/personal days accumulated comes the temptation to use as many as I can since they are a "benefit" and there's no compensation for not using them. Since this is the final time that I'll be teaching these classes, simply repeating lessons and projects assigned last year, only using Wite-Out to change the due dates, seems to be the best way to save time and energy. Because I won't be using them in the future, there's the temptation to leave the pages of my new planner blank. But I don't think I can fully indulge in these alluring behaviors. I'm not wired that way. I'm not saying that I'll refuse to take an extra day if there's some strong motivation, that every task and assessment will be brand new, or that every square in every lesson plan for every day will be crammed with information, but my intention is to live this year as I've lived the rest of my teaching career: aimed at helping kids understand their connection to others in the world and their ability to express themselves through a sound understanding of literature and good writing skills.

A year from now I'll be doing something different, not planning these next four days of classes to be taught by me. What I will be doing remains undecided but not really a mystery. I'll still be reading (mostly novels), still trying out interesting looking recipes, still watching Days of Our Lives and wondering if Sami's life will ever be smooth sailing, still blogging occasionally, emailing, Facebooking and chatting often, still making jewelry, feeding my dog tiny MilkBones, yelling at the Red Sox, doing the laundry, staying in touch with family, shooting photos, and the hundreds of other things that I typically do now. Between now and then I'll remain open to opportunity and decide what may expand, increase, or be added to my life. Until then, I'm going to enjoy the ride.

Renewal

I can come up with all kinds of justification for my lack of blogging, some suspiciously similar to the ones used by my own students, so I won't bother. I'll just renew my efforts to write more regularly and hope that I can sustain them longer than I've been doing lately.

Rain, cool and damp, has fallen at least five days out of every seven for a month or more, not an entirely unheard of occurrence, but certainly the reverse of what I think of for the end of spring and the start of summer. Advantages include cleansing the air of pollen that affects so many of us, low danger of fires starting or spreading rapidly, raising the water table to ensure that wells shouldn't dry up in the dead heat of summer, keeping air temperature cooler and delaying the need for the power sucking air conditioner, less desire to loll around outdoors on a lawn chair with a book instead of doing indoor chores or school work, and a lovely lushly green environment. All are very worthy reasons to welcome the rain if not with open arms at least with approval. However, rain makes me restless.

I'm not talking just about showers or storms with lightning and thunder, occurrences that naturally cause agitation with the visual and auditory stimulation and energizing ozone in the air. What I have in mind are the long slow days of drizzle to downpours when mental lethargy sets in, and the cold precipitation seems to limit my options. I'm not a fan of feeling chilly drops trickling down my neck or gathering on appendages to drip off or uncomfortably soaking my socks. I don't like sitting on dampness and then carrying the sogginess with me. Yep, I'll say it: I'm a wimp. That means I'm limited to indoor activities if I want to stay warm and dry. Limits make me restless, and this one is no exception.

It's not that I can't sit and read one of the several books I have going, or add to my jewelry inventory when I'm indoors. Winter time proves the fallacy of that idea. Perhaps the problem lies partly in the fact that, indoors, on vacation, I'm faced with the other stuff that I should be doing. That cluttered table, that stack of magazines to be clipped, the pile of clothing that needs to be mended or the others to be sorted and donated quietly but persistently call to me. The bench covered with odd items that need to find homes preys on my conscience and makes me feel guilty for not taking care of them before I indulge in more pleasurable activities. Of course the adult thing to do would be to dig in to one or more of the tasks needing to be done and then reward myself with an equal dose of tasks that I want to do. The key word there is "adult," and those who know me smile rather than attribute that quality to me. I'm still a kid at heart, and kids balk at limits. There's the rub.

I have to admit, though, that rain makes me restless in general, too, so my immaturity isn't the sole cause. The other sources include conditioning to expect that summer equals sunshine, the desire for deep warmth after a long winter, and the need for some vitamin D delivered by the sun. I've waited through 9 seemingly endless months of short days and bone chilling temperatures to enjoy long sunny days wandering in and out of the house, doing what I please, when I please. I deserve it! That delayed gratification stuff is for the birds! This gloomy rain had better back off soon before I become even more of a grouch. June, it's time for a string of nice warm, dry, sunny days to ease this restless soul.

The more things change...

...the more they stay the same.

Yep.

Really. The same.

It's like springsummerfallwinterspringsummerfallwinterspring.....

Etched in.

Superglued.

Eternal.

Once again I feel the need for a primal scream.

I'll be back when I catch my breath.

2011, year of change

In January I turned 61 with little fanfare, and that's fine. After a certain point it's more a celebration of being on the right side of the grass than a recognition of years past. In February we didn't even think of going away to some tropical isle for a midwinter getaway, and that's fine. Rest and a shapeless schedule are a delight for me in a life when, for 180 days a year, I hit the ground running .. once I can get myself going .. until I find myself in a stupor during the early evenings. Somewhere between those two markers of time, my birthday and February vacation, I knew without doubt that my decision to make next year my final year of classroom teaching was the right one for me.

There's no one thing, like a mammoth boulder, that squashed me into mush and made me decide to call this career quits. If there had been, most likely I would have done it this year instead of waiting a year because I firmly believe that quality of life is as significant as the other concerns that can determine such a decision. Instead, it's been the proverbial piling on of straws, one after the other, over time, that makes me realize I can no longer bear all of them on this camel's back of mine.

Partly due to No Child Left Behind legislation, partly due to more local rules and laws that relieve students of responsibility for themselves and their learning, and partly from the requirement to adhere to an assessment system that does not reflect the way the rest of our world functions, I feel that my profession has shifted under me, and I no longer fit into it as well as I have in the past. Instead of being a leader, I struggle with these aspects that don't make sense to me in so many ways. The intellectual explanations seem to reflect good practice, but the reality just doesn't work out that way for lots of reasons, and I find it very uncomfortable to be part of the group swallowing the doctrine hook, line, and sinker. In fact, it makes me feel, at times, like the dumb cow about which I warn my students every year: "Don't be a dumb cow, following the leader but not knowing why. Know where you're going and why you're going there, or you may be led to slaughter." I'm finding it less than genuine and honest to lead the young folks on this path that's not clear to me will take us to the best end. Heck, I'm not even really sure where it's leading us at all, and unsure is definitely not a good way for a leader to be.

So I'm transitioning away from the current and toward a new version of me. For so long, as far as work is concerned, I've been "English teacher" (and other assorted and related titles) that it's become my permanent designation. People in their fifth decade still refer to me in that way. Some people do know me as photographer, and some know me as jewelry maker, but they're considered my hobbies. I suspect that the shift from my one career to a variety of different jobs will be almost harder for others to adjust to than for me. Ah well, that's not for me to worry about, not really my concern. I'll be moving toward work that makes more sense to me, that still fulfills me but differently, and I won't have to carry the same type of worry with me day and night for most of the year.

The other realization that's been growing over almost the same time frame is that my mother is declining noticeably. She's been in a retirement community for four years, following the plan that she and my dad made for their later years, but Dad passed away just before she moved in. Alone for the first two years, she didn't do well in a large apartment by herself, so she moved to assisted living quarters which was a great improvement. She's had a man friend, another resident, for most of this past two years, and even with the ups and downs that sometimes reminded me of junior high times, their relationship has been a good thing for both of them. Now, though, their memory appears to be diminishing bit by bit. In addition to not remembering that he's told us kids the same stories several times per visit, he now asks odd questions, like are we going to eat the wrapped package that we hold in our hands. Her difficulty is starting a sentence or a question and not being able to remember a crucial word by the time she tries to reach the end of it. She feels a little frustration at the time, closing her eyes to search for the word she needs, and she expresses the realization that she feels "stupid" when she can't find it, but often we know what she's talking about and can insert the needed word in a response. We're glad that she doesn't seem to feel lingering anger or even exasperation, probably because she's still understood. Her world is small and easily manageable to her, aside from the shrinking vocabulary, so she's content.

Being her eldest daughter, the one who most resembles her facially, I watch myself to see how much I follow in her footsteps in other ways. This language issue is one I've tasted during recuperation from surgery some years ago when the painkiller I was prescribed scrambled my brains enough to take away the ability to draw some simple words -- mainly names of things -- from my memory, reducing me to tears of fear and helplessness. The prescription was changed, and my mind returned to its normal state, but the recollection of that time remains vivid. I don't know that I'll be as graceful when I begin losing my vocabulary when I reach my waning years as my mother seems to be. This is a change I hope not to see for many decades.

Finally, the winter of 2010-2011 seems to be a time when we're losing friends and relatives. One of Earl's brothers passed away about a week after surgery for something other than the heart attack that took him, and then this past week the daughter in law of that same brother died in a similar circumstance at the age of 57. We've also just heard of the passing of the brother in law of a dear friend of ours, a man with a generous heart and a true love of life. He was not many years older than we are. The good that comes out of the pain and loss is that we promise to take better care of ourselves, and we keep in closer touch with our loved ones at least for a while until the next reminder comes.

Life is short. Do what you can to be responsible and happy, and to live while you're alive. I've added this thought to my 2011 New Year's Resolution not to sweat as much small stuff. Now let's see if I can live it and roll with the changes.

Snow news here

(Bad pun, I know, but that's what happens when the weather is the top of the news nearly every day and the "white gold" falls in plowable amounts twice a week and more.)

We live in New Hampshire. It snows in the winter. It's winter. Ergo....

That doesn't seem like too difficult a syllogism to complete or accept, but from the grousing I hear, I judge that I'm in the minority who agree with that position. I'm not saying that I don't appreciate warm sunshine and mild breezes or having my toes buried in the hot sand while I sip a cool drink, but that's not natural to us in the days of short sunlight up here in New England. Those descriptions suit winter vacation destinations, the getaways, the respites from our mundane lives. In fact, I doubt that we'd appreciate them as much if we didn't have this expanse of snow, the collection of icicles, the dwindling stacks of firewood, and the array of thermal undies and sweaters for contrast.

Today is the fourth full snow day of our school year which, brings the last day for students to Friday, June 17, and the last day for staff to the following Monday, June 20. A friend of mine suggests that, since snow days called now shorten our summer break, we should treat them like gifts or vacation days, and I concur. These are, for me, days to rise at my leisure, pick and choose what tasks I do and when I do them, dress for the day on my own schedule, snack or eat slowly rather than wolfing down lunch at a prescribed time, and take care of those odds and ends that I've wanted to do but haven't found time in my all too short weekends.

Our school district hasn't gone the way of another one nearby that has teachers posting snow day lessons and being available online for advice or guidance to students completing the assigned tasks so the day counts as a school day. I think the jury is still out on the effectiveness of these lessons and other repercussions, and since our district either moves at lightning speed to adopt initiatives or thinks about/discusses/ investigates the life out of a new possibility until it sinks into oblivion, I doubt that I'll see it happen while I'm actively teaching. That's fine with me because part of the impact of actual classes is the spontaneity and interaction between classmates and instructor that can't be recreated online. I know this because I've taken several courses that were hybrids: first and last class on location in a physical classroom face to face with instructor and colleagues, and the rest of the time on my own, through emails, and in a closed, weekly online chat space for classmates and instructor. The courses weren't bad because I could accomplish the week's assignments when it was convenient for me to do so, and I could multi task during the chat session, but I'm an adult, one who's interested in the one course I'm taking, and motivated to do well because I truly want to learn information and techniques offered in the course. The wish is that all high school students would fit that description, or each high school course and instruction be interesting enough to motivate every student to the utmost, but I think that's terribly idealistic. Therefore, the human interaction - the eye to eye contact, the face to face discussions, the tone of voice that means so much, the teachable moments that only arise when teacher and students are together - continues to enhance education in classrooms of a wide variety of descriptions, making them still the best places, in my humble opinion, for many kinds of teaching and learning to occur.

Okay, I'm off my soap box for now. I think I'll do the last two days' newspaper crossword puzzles (yes, we still read actual newspapers) if they haven't yet been used to encourage the fire in the wood stove, and I may just make a loaf or two of banana bread or a pan of brownies... or not. This is one of those rather aimless days that I'm thoroughly enjoying: the gift of a summer vacation day, five months early.